N.B. Liberal MLA Denis Landry looks to make jump to municipal politics

Longtime Liberal MLA Denis Landry says he will leave his seat this fall, possibly giving new Liberal Leader Susan Holt a chance to hit the floor of the New Brunswick Legislature.

Landry was first elected in 1995 and is the only sitting MLA to have sat with former premier Frank McKenna. On Friday, he announced he’ll run for mayor of the newly created municipality of Hautes-Terres in November’s local government elections.

“If I can put a good foundation, working the right way with people, telling them that we have to work together to put this new municipality growing, I might be the person to do that,” he said.

During his time in the provincial legislature, Landry has been MLA of three different ridings and he says the new municipality, created out of Saint-Isidore and several other small communities on the Acadian Peninsula, is quite similar to the riding he was first elected to in 1995.

“I’ve been representing these people for 30 years,” he said.

But with Landry now committed to resigning Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-Saint-Isidore, Holt will have a chance to seek a safe seat, should she want it.

JP Lewis, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick, says she would likely be wise to do so.

A recent poll from Narrative Research, conducted mostly since Holt took over as leader on August 6, shows the Liberals with 41 per cent support among decided voters, compared to 31 per cent for the Progressive Conservatives. Narrative’s previous quarterly poll from May had the two parties tied with 34 per cent.

“Holt appears to be experiencing a honeymoon of support and if Holt doesn’t get a seat in the legislature, how does she keep that momentum going,” Lewis said.

Previous Liberal Leader Kevin Vickers never won a seat in the Legislature. He had planned to run in a byelection for Brian Gallant’s old seat in Shediac Bay-Dieppe, but those were initially postponed by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, before a general election was called for September 2020. Vickers resigned on election night after failing to win the Miramichi riding, as Higgs swept to a majority government.

According to Lewis, if Holt opts not to run for the seat, that could become a story on its own.

“Every story about whether or not the leader has a seat yet could be a story where the leader is putting forward their ideas that oppose the government’s policies,” he said.

“It’s an opportunity to be right there in the Legislature, to be responding to the premier and leading your caucus in Fredericton.”

Jamie Gilles, a professor of communications and public policy at St. Thomas University, says it used to be quite common for a sitting MLA in a safe seat to resign to allow a new leader a chance to be in the Legislature. That’s for good reason, he says.

“The exposure the opposition leader gets in the legislature day to day is very important for a party that is trying to be the government in waiting,” Gilles said.

But should Holt decide to take a run at the seat, it won’t be up to her when she gets the chance to do so. It will be up to Higgs to decide when a byelection would be held. While the Elections Act says he must call one within six months of a seat being vacated, there’s no limit on what date it can be set.

However, Gilles says it could be somewhat dangerous for the premier to delay for too long.

“People are going to draw a fairly straight line between electoral manipulation and this is hurting democracy, we’ve got to have somebody as the leader of the official opposition,” he said.