Was an election call the right move by the Conservative government?
Canadian Politics Associate Professor at Mount Allison University Mario Levesque says, last week’s proposed agreement for the opposition parties, may have been a strategic one by Blaine Higgs, “He may be thinking, how can I make it so that the Opposition parties take the blame for forcing me into calling an early election. That would be what he just went through right now, trying to get an accord for two years. He could blame the Liberals and the other opposition parties for not being willing to work with him.”
Levesque adds, “What he is also probably thinking of right now, is he’s looking at the polling data which sees him very high in the polls, because of the government response to COVID-19. His party is also very well off financially because of fundraising. They have a lot of money in the bank right now.”
Mario Levesque
(Photo: courtesy of Daniel St. Louis, from Mount Allison University website)
But having an election could potentially go the other way for the Conservatives, Levesque says. “New Brunswickers could perceive an election call for September as a negative thing, because of the pandemic and fears of a second wave. Some people may say that they just simply have too many things on their mind and that there’s a lot of concern from New Brunswickers.”
Not calling an election, would have meant a potential risk for Blaine Higgs, “The challenge if he didn’t call an election, he would have to call three by-elections this fall. If he lost two of them, the House would have flipped over to a minority Liberal government if they got the Greens to work with them,” Levesque says.
For some New Brunswickers, they may not have been surprised by today’s election call, and feel it just made sense, “When you are in a minority government situation, you do get tired trying to make things work all of the time. It is very, very difficult. Most minority governments last about a year and a half to two years. Basically, we were at the two year mark right now. To me, it’s natural that the Conservatives would be looking for more stability. There’s two ways to do that, either call an election to try and get a majority government or get an agreement with the other parties to avoid an election for the next one to two years,” Levesque says.
New Brunswickers will go to the polls on September 14th.
Blaine Higgs met with Lieutenant Governor Brenda Murphy this afternoon and asked for her to dissolve the 59th Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick.
It will be a 28 day campaign, with the first day on August 18th.
