Difficult environment for incumbents as N.B. enters election year

In the first few weeks of 2024, staffing shortages and delays at the province’s emergency rooms, along with a large encampment fire and the death of Evan MacArthur have dominated news coverage.

That hyper focus on the shortcomings of the health-care system and the worsening housing crisis will likely make it tough for the government to ask for a new mandate when the province heads to the polls at some point this year.

“These are traditionally key issues in election campaigns in Canadian federal and provincial elections, so the idea that it could become a referendum on who would have a better handle on improving the health-care system is not a new thing at all,” said JP Lewis, a professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick.

The challenge is laid out starkly in recent polling from Angus Reid. The polling firm found that the top three issues in most provinces, including New Brunswick, are health care, affordability and housing. Over the last four years the satisfaction of New Brunswickers over how the government is handling those issues has taken a nose dive.

In 2020, 42 per cent of those surveyed said the government was doing a good or very good job on health care. In polling done at the end of 2023, that number slid to just 14 per cent, while 83 per cent said the government was doing a poor or very poor job. On cost of living, 86 per cent gave the government failing marks and on housing that number was 85 per cent.

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It’s an environment that isn’t unique to the province, but shows the difficulty that incumbent governments are facing right now. Lewis says that the PCs of premier Blaine Higgs may look to make the case that they are better than the alternative.

“It might not just be a matter to sell what you’ve done, it might be a matter of ‘who do you trust going forward,'” he said. “Then it’s a matter of saying ‘well this is the alternative if this other party is in power.'”

Messaging to do just that has been coming from the government for months. Member statements from backbench government MLAs during legislative sitting days often include attempts to tie Liberal leader Susan Holt to decisions made by the previous Liberal government of Brian Gallant – where she spent time working for as a policy advisor, or to prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Social development minister Jill Green admitted that she has seen the Angus Reid polling and feels that the government needs to do a better job of letting people know about their successes. She pointed to a $200 increase in the low income senior’s benefit as an example.

“We need to shout that from the rooftops,” she said. “I know the great work that’s going on and I think we need to talk more about the good things that are happening.”

It’s also possible that the government may look to distract from the top issues like healthcare and affordability, Lewis says, as Higgs has continued to focus on issues around school gender identity policy and, more recently, gender affirming care. In the last week the government has held media availabilities with two controversial clinical psychologists who have recently made presentations to government about gender affirming care. Fundraising messaging has also continued to champion Higgs as a defender of “parental rights.”

But focusing their efforts on those topics may backfire, Lewis says.

“Even though there might be lots of attention to other policy questions, it’s hard to imagine this drifting away from a referendum on who can best handle the economy and improve the health-care system,” he said.