No agenda to weaken Greens with reduced caucus budget, Liberals say

The Liberal government's House leader says there's no secret agenda to weaken the Green Party in the New Brunswick legislature. 

Marco LeBlanc says a change to party caucus operating budgets that is forcing the Greens to lay off two staffers is simply a reflection of last fall's election results.

Former Green MLA Kevin Arseneau failed to win re-election, cutting the party's caucus from three members to two.

"We felt as a committee that a caucus of two should not have the same amount of money as a caucus of three," LeBlanc said.

"They've lost a third of their caucus, and the numbers that you're going to see in the budget next week are going to be reflective of that." 

Green Leader David Coon is laying off his press secretary, Jill Mersereau, and his executive assistant, Lindsay DeMerchant, at the end of the month.

The new budget allocations for party caucuses were recently decided by the all-party legislative administration committee, which oversees the functioning of the assembly.

The Liberals have a majority on the committee, which meets in secret.

That's why Coon is not able to talk about specific dollar figures until next week's provincial budget is released.

But he said losing the two staffers will make it harder to scrutinize the Liberal government.

"How do we make sure parliamentary democracy is effective? That means ensuring the opposition parties have the resources required to hold government accountable," he said.

"This is going to make it that much more challenging for us to hold the government accountable." 

He said the changes to the funding aren't going to require the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives to cut any staff.

But LeBlanc said the Greens will still have a higher ratio of staffers to MLAs than the two other parties, LeBlanc said.

Premier Susan Holt's Liberal win last fall lifted the Liberals from 17 seats in 2020 to 31 seats now — the largest government caucus since the 2010 election.

LeBlanc said to reflect that, the small support staff for the 11 backbench Liberal MLAs will gain a new position.

The Progressive Conservatives meanwhile dropped from 27 MLAs to 16. The party caucus did not respond to a request for comment.

All registered parties get additional funding under legislature rules, and members of recognized parties in the house get the right to make statements and to deliver official responses to statements by government ministers.

A party must elect five MLAs to be officially recognized in the legislature under its standing rules.

But starting in 1991 with NDP leader Elizabeth Weir — her party's lone elected member — smaller parties have been granted exceptions in a vote by MLAs.

The Greens and the People's Alliance later benefited from the same exception. 

All told, exceptions have been in effect for more time than not since Weir's first election, which LeBlanc said is why the Liberals have asked another committee of MLAs to look at changing the threshold.

LeBlanc wouldn't say Wednesday whether it's likely to be easier or harder for the two-member Green caucus to meet but said there's no plan to marginalize them.

"We're going to have conversations in committee next week, and we're going to hopefully find a consensus among committee members … to move forward, [to] respect the rules but also without removing the third-party status of the Greens," he said.