Higgs could wait until 2024 to reveal his plans for the next election

Premier Blaine Higgs could make New Brunswickers – and members of his Progressive Conservative Party – wait a year or more before announcing whether he will leave politics before the 2024 election.

Political insiders speculated that the prime minister would signal in early 2023 whether he plans to stay on as party leader for the next campaign or retire early.

But in a year-end interview with CBC News, Higgs was ambiguous about his timing, suggesting he might announce “early in the election year, very early.”

The fixed date election schedule in provincial legislation sets the date for the next election as October 21, 2024.

The prime minister said a leadership convention in May 2024 would give the PC Party enough time to prepare for a campaign five months later.

“So I think I still have time to make a decision,” he said.

“The Big Reveal”

In the fall, Higgs appeared to suggest to Brunswick News that he would declare his intentions in his annual State of the Province Address, 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 so far, the mandate, the things we’re working on…and kind of take it from there.” . So I’m going to talk about that.”

He said what he jokingly calls “the big reveal” might not happen then.

Brunswick News reporter Andrew Waugh tweeted Thursday morning that he had a recording of his September interview in which Higgs mentions the state of the province address and says, “My intention is, at that time , to 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 a former Conservative cabinet minister, released an open letter calling on party members to trigger a review of the direction to oust Higgs.

The letter called for this to happen before the Feb. 9 state of the province address.

“I personally think he should pass the torch to someone else,” said Jean-Pierre Ouellet, minister in Richard Hatfield’s former PC government.

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

It is not healthy for the French-speaking ridings in the North to be mainly represented by one party and the English-speaking seats in the South by another, argued Ouellet.

“If he decides to run again, the members of the Progressive Conservative Party must ask for a review of the leadership to try to deal with this situation, with this division which is not good for the economy and not good for the province,” he told Radio-Canada.

“You need a leader who can unite the province to deal with the situation.”

Hasn’t decided, says prime minister

Higgs acknowledged that ‘what is typical, what is normal’ could be to announce plans in early 2023 so the party can hold a leadership vote in the fall and give a new prime minister a year. to set his own record before going to the polls.

“But I really haven’t decided,” he said.

Rejecting Higgs as prime minister would require 50 rank-and-file party members, including 20 presidents of constituency associations, to sign letters asking the PC chairman’s council to consider a review vote.

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

Only then would a vote to remove Higgs be scheduled for all members.

After Higgs named former People’s Alliance leader Kris Austin to his cabinet in October, a party vice-chairman, Maurice Arsenault, called for a review. But no one else has come out publicly in favor of it.

At the party’s annual meeting in November, one party presidential candidate, Andrew Dawson, said Arsenault’s letter “was the flashing ‘check engine’ light for the party.”

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