Federal Greens hope to retake Fredericton, with help from N.B. counterparts
Green history in N.B. a plus as party tries to bring climate back into the conversation
Greens are hoping voters in Fredericton will look fondly on the past as the party pushes to make climate change a more prominent part of political debate.
Fredericton's Green experience was mentioned throughout a speech Thursday by Elizabeth May, the Green co-leader, during a campaign stop in the city.
But one of the brightest moments in that history was cause for a slight awkwardness at the event.
Jenica Atwin made history when she became the first Green MP from New Brunswick, elected in Fredericton in 2019. Then Atwin crossed the floor to join the Liberals in 2021 and was subsequently re-elected.
On Thursday, May and others spoke of the Green Party's fleeting success in the riding without ever referring to Atwin by name.
"We made history here by electing a Green in 2019," said Pam Allen-LeBlanc, the party's local candidate in the election coming up April 28. "The time is right for Fredericton-Oromocto to send a Green to Ottawa again."
Atwin has decided not to run this time.
About 40 people, including some Green candidates, gathered for an hour of speeches peppered with jokes and jabs at opposition parties before a lively crowd.
May spoke of how her party is an effective opposition party that would bring the climate and Indigenous reconciliation back into the national conservation, something she said the Liberals and Conservatives were failing to do so.
"The reality of this election … is profoundly disturbing. There are a number of things that are [missing], just gone from the conversation."
She cited the wildfires in Western Canada last summer and a heat wave that killed 619 in British Columbia in 2021 to illustrate the threat Canada faces from climate change.
With the United States becoming more of a threat, May also spoke in favour of removing inter-provincial trade barriers and making a national renewable energy grid.
She and Allen-LeBlanc cited New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon and fellow Green MLA Megan Mitton as examples of what the party can achieve in the province.
"Even a small caucus can make a difference," Allen-LeBlanc said as she championed the provincial party.
In her own speech, Mitton said Greens can be elected in New Brunswick, but they have to put in the work during a campaign. She noted that she won her first term representing Sackville with a margin of just 11 votes.
"Greens can't just walk in, we have to build."
In an interview, Allen-LeBlanc said she was hearing cost-of-living concerns most often while door knocking in the riding, but calls for more policing and for addressing homelessness and drug addiction also come up.
"They're angry with the Liberal Party, they're angry with the Conservative Party because they're just almost helpless," she said.
Mary Hartt of Fredericton said it was Coon who first won her over to the party and then she felt the same appreciation of May, who first became the natonal leader in 2006 and lately has been co-leader with Jonathan Pedneault.
Hartt said she liked may's support for breaking interprovincial trade barriers and her efforts to bring a climate-change response front and centre.
"We have to breakdown those barriers between the provinces. Alberta is not autonomous. Quebec is not autonomous. We're our one country."
Mark Dunphy, retired firefighter who lives near Mactaquac, said he worries about the dangers of pipelines.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pitched building a pipeline to Saint John at a recent campaign stop there.
"I don't want to take jobs away from the fellas in Saint John because they're hardworking individuals down there … but we live in a province that's covered in water," Dunphy said.
"How are they going to get it in here, because pipelines break just as much as anything else."
Party runs 'paper candidates' for half of N.B.
The Green Party is running candidates in eight of the 10 New Brunswick ridings.
But in half of those ridings — Beauséjour, Fundy Royal, Miramichi-Grand Lake and Saint John-St. Croix — the party is running what it calls paper candidates. Their biographies and photos are absent from the Green website, and party organizers will not make any of them available for interviews with reporters.
When asked why, May said the timing of the election call was a challenge.
"If we had had the fixed election date of October 2025, every single riding in New Brunswick would have someone giving it their all with a team of volunteers that are fresh people," May said.
In Fredericton-Oromocto, Allen-LeBlanc is running against Conservative Brian MacDonald, Liberal David Myles, New Democrat Nicki Lyons-Macfarlane, Dominic Cardy of the Canadian Future Party, Brandon Ellis of the Centrist Party, June Patterson of the Communist Party and Heather Michaud of the People's Party of Canada.
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