PC party ponders a new direction — and a new leader — in wake of defeat
Former minister Daniel Allain is so far only potential leadership candidate
As Premier Susan Holt prepared to deliver her State of the Province speech last month, a handful of Progressive Conservatives were two blocks away, pondering the state of their political party.
Daniel Allain, a former PC minister dumped from cabinet in 2023 by then-premier Blaine Higgs, had invited what he called "like-minded New Brunswickers" to a reception at a Fredericton bar.
The "like-minded" people who responded were Tory stalwarts mulling over the direction of their party in the wake of October's election defeat.
Among them was Jeff Carr, another former PC minister dropped by Higgs in the same cabinet shuffle as Allain in June 2023.
The Fredericton gathering was the second Allain organized, after a "Blue Christmas" reception in Moncton in December.
"I like talking to people. I'm in the people business. I miss politics a little bit, so I want to be part of the renewal process," he said.
Allain acknowledged being part of that renewal may include running for the PC leadership.
"We'll see in the future but it's definitely something I'm interested in," he said.
The party hasn't set a date to choose its next leader.
A PC member in Saint John has proposed changing the leadership race voting system to give all 49 ridings in the province equal weight, as New Brunswick Liberals do.
Party president Erika Hachey has not responded to questions from CBC News about when that will be decided.
'It wasn't all Blaine Higgs's fault'
The party has other issues to resolve, including what direction it should take in the post-Blaine Higgs era.
"We've got to get some things straightened out," said Miramichi West MLA Mike Dawson, who believes the 16-member PC caucus he is part of at the legislature needs to pay more attention to grassroots members.
Dawson complained last fall when many members weren't notified in time to attend an annual general meeting held just after the election.
The PCs did not hold a policy convention during Higgs's eight-year tenure as leader, and some caucus members complained he didn't consult them on major decisions.
Dawson blamed issues like health care and inflation — not Higgs — for last fall's defeat.
"I know everybody wants to point and say Blaine Higgs was the problem and Blaine Higgs was the reason we didn't get elected. It wasn't all Blaine Higgs's fault."
Higgs himself said during a recent online interview with one of his former candidates that voters upset about rising prices weren't won over by his government's effort to balance the budget and reduce the province's accumulated debt.
"People just react to their local challenge, and not the bigger picture," he said.
While Dawson considers Higgs one of the best premiers in the province's history — and sided with him when others tries to remove him as leader in 2023 — the MLA said it's time for the PCs to consider "a more proactive direction."
"We've got to keep the conservative values that we have as a conservative party, but we've got to be more progressive with, maybe, some issues," he said.
Public reaction to changes to Policy 713, which added a parental consent requirement if students younger than 16 wanted to adopt new names and pronouns at school to reflect their gender identity, rocked the Higgs government.
Six MLAs, including four ministers, voted with the opposition on a motion calling for more study before the changes were adopted.
Two of the ministers quit, complaining that Higgs didn't listen to his caucus, and two others — Allain and Carr — were shuffled out of cabinet.
Policy 713 also galvanized social conservatives, including Christian activist and broadcaster Faytene Grasseschi, who signed up followers to support Higgs and who became the PC candidate in Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins.
Higgs said she represented a "revolution" within the party, but her nomination led many PC members to support Liberal candidate John Herron, who defeated Grasseschi.
A poll by Mainstreet Research during last year's election showed that 50 per cent of respondents supported Higgs's changes to Policy 713 while only 35 per cent opposed them.
Even so, Liberal pollster Dan Arnold said his data showed voters believed that Higgs was distracted by Policy 713 at the expense of issues like affordability and health care — and that the party split showed he wasn't a good leader.
'What do they represent?'
Political scientist J.P. Lewis of the University of New Brunswick in Saint John said the party now needs to decide whether to stick with social conservative issues.
"I think the biggest issue is: what do they represent? I think the last couple of years of the Higgs government, for all to see, represented an existential crisis within the party," he said.
"I think they know there's a base for what Higgs focused on at the end, but I think there's a ceiling for that."
Grasseschi would not do an interview with CBC News but said in an email she has not decided whether to run again, or seek the party leadership herself.
"I have not put any thought into this and am quite occupied in other directions at the moment. I am not aware of anyone else who is tire-kicking, so I have not thought about endorsements," she said.
"Everyone should stay involved in the party that most represents their views and values. I will do that."
A longtime PC supporter in Hampton who supported the Liberals over Grasseschi, Al Walker, said he'll wait until the leadership race to decide whether to return to the Tory fold.
Dawson says he believes "it would be best for the party" to chose a francophone leader to lead it into the next election.
Over three elections, the Higgs team never elected more than a single francophone MLA at a time.
Other potential leadership candidates include current interim leader Glen Savoie, who in an email statement did not rule out running.
"My only focus is on the task before me, which is being an effective opposition for the people of this province and leading the rebuilding of our party for the next election," he said.
Allain wouldn't stake out a position on the party's future direction.
"There's a lot of things we can change, but I think New Brunswickers want an alternative. They want a solid alternative… and the PC party has that institutional knowledge, that organizational knowledge, so we can be ready to govern."
Lewis said given the party won 35 per cent of the vote last fall — better than in 2018 when they formed a minority government — a quick comeback isn't out of the question.
"It's an existential crisis that, if they solve it correctly, they're not far off from taking power again," Lewis said.
"They could easily be competitive in 2028."
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