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Higgs may wait until 2024 to reveal his plans for next election

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Higgs may wait until 2024 to reveal his plans for next election

Premier casts doubt on timeline for leadership announcement early next year

Premier Blaine Higgs may make New Brunswickers — and members of his Progressive Conservative Party — wait another year or more before he announces whether he'll leave politics ahead of the 2024 election.

Political insiders have been assuming the premier would signal in early 2023 whether he plans to stick around as party leader for the next campaign or retire beforehand.

But in a year-end interview with CBC News, Higgs was ambiguous about his timeline, suggesting he could announce "early in the year of the election, very early."

The fixed-date schedule of elections in provincial legislation sets the date of the next election as Oct. 21, 2024.

WATCH | Blaine Higgs on when he plans to decide whether to seek another term: 

Higgs may wait until 2024 to announce whether he’ll fight next election

Duration 2:13
Political insiders expected New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs to reveal his plans for the 2024 election early next year. But in a year-end interview, Higgs says he could keep people waiting a while longer.

The premier said a leadership convention in May 2024 would give the PC Party enough time to get ready for a campaign five months later.

"So I think I've got time, just yet, to make a decision," he said.

'The great reveal'

In the fall, Higgs appeared to suggest to Brunswick News that he'd declare his intentions in his annual state of the province speech, now scheduled for Feb. 9, 2023.

He told CBC, however, that he was referring at the time to using the speech to highlight "what we've accomplished to date, the mandate, the things we're working on … and kind of go from there. So I will talk about it." 

He said that what he jokingly calls "the great reveal" may not happen at that time. 

Brunswick News reporter Andrew Waugh tweeted Thursday morning that he has a recording of his September interview in which Higgs mentions the state of the province speech and says, "My intention is to, at that time, identify what my plans are."

The premier's new comments in the CBC interview came the same day a group of 48 New Brunswickers, including one former PC cabinet minister, released an open letter calling on members of the party to trigger a leadership review to oust Higgs.

The letter asked that it happen before the Feb. 9 state of the province speech.

Jean-Pierre Ouellet, a minister in the former government of Richard Hatfield, says he thinks Higgs should let someone else take the role in the 2024 election. (Bernard LeBel/Radio-Canada)

"I personally think he should pass the torch to someone else," said Jean-Pierre Ouellet, a minister in the former PC government of Richard Hatfield.

Ouellet said Higgs's handling of language issues shows the party needs a new leader.

It's not healthy for northern francophone ridings to be mostly represented by one party and southern anglophone seats by another, Ouellet argued.

"If he decides to reoffer, the members of the Progressive Conservative Party have to ask for a leadership review to try to deal with this situation, with this division that is not good for the economy and not good for the province," he told Radio-Canada.

"It takes a leader who can unite the province to deal with the situation." 

Hasn't decided, premier says

Higgs acknowledged that "what's typical, what's normal" might be to announce his plans in early 2023 so the party could hold a leadership vote in the fall and give a new premier a year to establish their own record before going to the polls.

"But I really haven't decided," he said.

Pushing Higgs out while he's premier would require 50 grassroots party members, including 20 riding association presidents, signing letters to ask the PC president's council to consider a review vote.

That council, made up of the party executive, regional vice-presidents and all 49 PC riding association presidents, would then have to vote two-thirds in favour of a review.

Only then would a vote on removing Higgs be scheduled for all members.

After Higgs appointed former People's Alliance leader Kris Austin to his cabinet in October, one party vice-president, Maurice Arsenault, called for a review. But no one else came out publicly in favour.

At the party's annual meeting in November, a candidate for party president, Andrew Dawson, said Arsenault's letter "was the 'check engine' light" flashing for the party.

Members at the meeting rejected that message, electing Fredericton lawyer Erika Hachey as party president with 110 votes to 70 for Dawson.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Jacques Poitras

Provincial Affairs reporter

Jacques Poitras has been CBC's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He grew up in Moncton and covered Parliament in Ottawa for the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. He has reported on every New Brunswick election since 1995 and won awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Newspaper Awards and Amnesty International. He is also the author of five non-fiction books about New Brunswick politics and history.

 
 
Comments
 
 
 
Marguerite Deschamps 
Split the province from Nothwest to Southeast and give us our own bilingual province. We will raise our own taxes and do as we please with federal funding. We will show you how to run a province. The rest of the province will be nothing but ghost towns.  
 
 
Rosco holt
Reply to Marguerite Deschamps 
Most likely ST John would bankrupt their half in a few months with the massive corporate catering that is going on.
 
 
T. Williamson 
Reply to Marguerite Deschamps  
If you want a bilingual province why don’t you start by fighting for an English immersion or 50/50 English learning program in the French schools so that the French kids can learn proper English and become bilingual . Right ?
 
 
David Amos
Reply to Marguerite Deschamps
Who is we???
 
 
Marguerite Deschamps 
Reply to T. Williamson
That pretty well defeats the arguments we read here most times that most Francophones speak English. You can't have it both ways.
 
 
Marguerite Deschamps 
Reply to David Amos
Those who cannot tolerate those of us who happen to speak French. If the hat fits you, wear it. If not, I am not referring to you, welcome aboard❗
 
 
Marguerite Deschamps 
Reply to Rosco holt
They would no longer have our tax 💰💲💲 to keep them afloat.
 
 
Noé Osé 
Reply to Rosco holt
It would look more like Northern Maine. 
 
 
David Amos
Reply to Marguerite Deschamps  
Yea we know who I am it is who you truly are that I am inquiring about
 
 
T. Williamson 
Reply to Marguerite Deschamps 
If most francaphonies speak English then we can all communicate and no need for anyone to learn French right ?  
 
 
T. Williamson 
Reply to Marguerite Deschamps 
That was the platform for the parti Acadiens political party back in the 70s and we saw how far they got with dat one. Lol  
 
 
 
Matt Steele 
"I personally think he should pass the torch to someone else," said Jean-Pierre Ouellet, a minister in the former PC government of Richard Hatfield. "
 
Holy smokes , they must have been desperate to find someone to interview if they had to go back all the way to the Hatfield days to dig someone one up ; how many Premiers ago was that.....lol . I must admit , some of these CBC articles seem so desperate , that they amusing 
 
 
Marguerite Deschamps 
Reply to Matt Steele
He one of many who wants him out. .
 
 
Raymond Leger 
Reply to Marguerite Deschamps
The rest are all scared of losing their jobs! 
 
 
David Amos 
Reply to Raymond Leger
Bingo
 
 
 
 
Rosco holt 
Higgs is changing laws governing private woodlot, blocking private woodlot owners from using the wood that is on their properties in the name on forest conservatism.(source Acadie Nouvelle). 
 
 
David Amos 
Reply to Rosco holt 
Wow 

 

 
 
 
  • "








  • Bingo





    Wow

 
 

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