Premier Susan Holt reflects on busy two months since N.B. election win

A few weeks after leading the New Brunswick Liberals to electoral victory and becoming the first female premier in that province’s history, Susan Holt got a phone call from the federal government about an incoming holiday tax break.

“It was a surprise to get a phone call and be told, ‘Here's a program and, doesn't it sound great?’” Holt told CTV News Atlantic’s Todd Battis during a year-end interview. “We had lots of questions, and as we proceeded to try to get our questions answered, we learned what it was going to cost the books here in New Brunswick.”

Holt, like Premier Tim Houston in neighbouring Nova Scotia, is seeking the lost revenue from the ongoing federal GST/HST break.

“New Brunswickers expect us to live within our means and taking a $70-million hit to our bottom line is not tenable right now,” she said. “While I appreciate that the federal government wants to give an affordability benefit to New Brunswickers, we'd like them to keep us whole in the process and so that's what we're fighting for.

“We’re striving to balance our budgets.”

Election promises

Holt defeated former premier Blaine Higgs and the governing Progressive Conservatives in the October provincial election. She’s already fulfilled some of her platform promises – including $10,000 bonuses for nurses, removing the provincial sales tax from electricity bills and reversing the changes to Policy 713 – but one key pledge is now tied up with committee.

Holt vowed to remove the carbon adjustment tax within her first 100 days in office, but after the government introduced legislation to do so on Nov. 20, the bill was sent to the law amendments committee for review. The move prompted the Progressive Conservatives to accuse the Liberals of trying to find a way out of that promise.

“We would like to deliver that quickly, that was our plan,” Holt said. “We met with some opposition in the legislature, which is its role, and we met with some opposition from some retailers, particularly some rural retailers. We were wrestling with continuing to barge ahead or really pause for about two months.”

Holt said she hopes to have something legislative in place by March 1.

“Not maybe what I would have hoped, but we have to respect that opposition is there for a reason and there’s a process to follow,” she said. “We want New Brunswickers to have the benefit of the most competitive gas prices in the country. We want them to have the lowest prices possible that still serve them and the market.

“When we look at all of the Canadians that are under a deregulated environment, they seem to have the same, if not better, prices and gas and very similar levels of volatility. We are asking the question of whether it's serving us and how much it's costing us to go through that regulatory process with all of the sort of red tape and steps and work and people and costs that that entails.”

Tariff talk

Holt says her government is taking President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canada “very seriously.”

“Should tariffs like that come into place, they would be really damaging to the New Brunswick economy, to the Canadian economy,” Holt said. “I think that we will be successful in convincing the Trump administration that Canada has been an exceptional partner, both economically and from a security perspective, and that would not be in their best interest to continue with these tariffs.”

Holt noted New Brunswick, which is the only Maritime province to share a land border with the United States, greatly depends on a strong trade relation with its southern neighbour, and vice versa.

“We're engaging with all of our partners in the U.S.,” she said. “We wanted to hear from them about their perspective on the tariffs and we learned how dependent they are on Canadian electricity, Canadian oil, Canadian forestry products, Canadian seafood and agricultural products. We learned their views on how hurtful they thought it would be to their states and their economies.

“Some of those are Republican governors that are going to be good allies for us and getting that message across. We've talked to our business community here in New Brunswick about all of their business in the U.S.”

RCMP on the border

Amid the discussions over the tariffs, the federal government announced plans to strengthen border security earlier this month. Holt said her government is keeping an eye on that development with the hope it won’t pull police services away from New Brunswick communities.

“We would hope to see some of those folks at places like the port, where there has been such growth in their volumes and their activity that the CBSA station there could really use some more help,” she said. “We wouldn't want to pull RCMP out of communities where New Brunswickers are looking to see an increased amount of public safety services. We would want to see an addition of support to help improve what is already a really strong, peaceful and secure border.”

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