Recent firing of N.B. deputy minister ‘sending shockwaves of uncertainty’: Cardy

Former New Brunswick Education minister Dominic Cardy says the continued shuffling and dismissals within the civil service is troubling.

Cardy says George Daley, who was the deputy minister for the education department’s anglophone sector, was fired from his role on Nov. 9.

“This isn’t the first deputy minister that’s been fired after being hired by the premier to achieve a specific job, moving in that direction, and the premier … changing course,” Cardy said in an interview Friday.

Cardy recently resigned from his role as minister and his resignation letter suggested Premier Blaine Higgs was making decisions based on emotions and not on evidence or data.

The letter suggested Higgs was also moving to eliminate French immersion in September 2023, which is an accelerated timeline, according to the New Brunswick Teachers’ Association.

He also stated the premier said “data my a–” to a civil servant who was showing him the numbers on the effectiveness of French immersion.

That civil servant was George Daley, Cardy confirmed.

Since then, a new deputy minister of Education and Early Childhood Development was appointed and George Daley has left.

“This sort of messaging is sending shockwaves of uncertainty through the civil service and this is again the latest crisis that has hit the civil service,” Cardy said. “This one is more public because of the way that I resigned and now Mr. Daley being removed, but core fact is still there, which is that we have a civil service that is being subjected to political inference on a regular basis and it has to stop.”

Cardy said he and Daley were aligned in not wanting to eliminate French immersion, though both acknowledged it needed some reform.

“Mr. Daley and I were consistent in going to the premier and saying, ‘Here is what we can do, here is a realistic timeline in which we can do it,’ and over the last few months the premier became less and less interested in facts,” he said.

He said the promise not to politically interfere is gone.

“To see that tossed away because of a premier obsessed with electoral legacy and apparently anything to do with language is disheartening,” he said.

In a statement, Premier Blaine Higgs thanked Daley for his time and work as deputy minister, adding he “especially wanted to acknowledge the valuable contribution he made in his role during the pandemic.”

But Higgs declined to comment on why Daley is no longer with the government.

2:13 Teachers’ association says New Brunswick French immersion changes too fast

Liberal leader Susan Holt said it is scary to see the most recent departure of someone in the civil service.

She said it worries her on whether others working within the civil service might feel unable to speak truth to power.

“It’s suggests if you disagree with the direction of the PC government, the Higgs cabinet, then your job is at risk,” she said in an interview on Friday.

According to Holt, there has been many resignations within that sector. Her party is looking at the number of resignations this year compared to previous years.

John MacLaughlin will become deputy minister of the department in the interim.