New Brunswick election 2024 platform guide: What are the parties promising?

New Brunswick PC Leader Blaine Higgs, Liberal Leader Susan Holt, and Green Leader David Coon are seen in this composite photo.

With the New Brunswick election scheduled for Oct. 21, you might be wondering where the political parties stand on issues like health care, education and housing.

CTVNewsAtlantic.ca has compiled a list of the key promises made by New Brunswick’s three major political parties to help you decide how to cast your vote.

The list below is only a snapshot of the campaign promises from each major party and is not a full representation of each party's platform.

The complete Green, Liberal and Progressive Conservative party platforms are all available online.

Green Party leader David Coon speaks to reporters at a campaign kick off event in Fredericton on Sept. 18, 2024. Left to right is Green MLA Megan Mitton, Coon, and Green MLA Kevin Arseneau. (Nick Moore/CTV Atlantic)

GREEN PARTY

Truth and reconciliation

• Commission an Indigenous-led, independent public inquiry into the New Brunswick justice and policing systems to uncover systemic racism against Indigenous peoples and how to correct it.
• Enter into partnership agreements with First Nations for the stewardship of Crown lands.
• Restore all place names containing racist terminology against Indigenous peoples to their original or traditional Wabanaki names, or names recommended by First Nations.
• Support First Nations in their efforts to revitalize the Wabanaki languages in New Brunswick.

Health Care

• Give every New Brunswicker a permanent health-care team in their community with collaborative team-based family practices and expanding community health centres.
• Establish women’s health centres to address women’s unique needs and reduce barriers to abortion services.
• Implement specialized training and establish dedicated roles to enhance transgender health care.
• Provide public funding for essential medical supplies, such as diabetes test strips, ostomy bags and enteral nutrition supplies.
• Improve access to mental health care by publicly funding psychotherapy and providing counselling services through community health clinics.
• Establish new residential rehabilitation facilities to meet the demand for treatment of addictions.
• Retain and recruit health-care professionals through competitive salaries, retention bonuses, and benefits comparable to those in Nova Scotia and P.E.I.
• Offer full tuition bursaries for students in medical and nursing school.

Affordability and housing

• Establish a permanent rent cap to protect tenants from unaffordable rent increases.
• Expand the mandate of Residential Tenancies Officers to allow them to intervene in cases of landlords discriminating against tenants based-on race, disability, or having children or pets.
• Have the NB Housing Corporation prioritize the construction of public, non-profit, and cooperative housing to expand affordable options for low and moderate-income individuals and families.
• Create a public rental registry for rental properties to provide information about rent and heat costs and planned renovations.
• Regulate short-term rentals to prevent them from reducing the availability of affordable long-term rental units.
• Invest in supportive housing programs that combine affordable housing with support services to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
• Immediately raise social assistance rates of all categories and adjust them accordingly every following year until a Guaranteed Livable Income is in place.
• Create a provincial disability support program.
• Raise the minimum wage to $20/hour no later than 2028 and reduce taxes on small and medium businesses to aid the transition.

Climate

• Create a Climate Change Risk Reduction Fund to make the infrastructure investments required to safeguard vulnerable communities from flooding, coastal erosion, and violent weather.
• Establish a Coastal Protection Authority to coordinate efforts to protect communities and infrastructure along New Brunswick’s 2,250 km of coastline.
• Improve cellphone and internet coverage across New Brunswick to ensure timely, life-saving information is accessible during floods, fires, and severe weather.
• Work with affected communities, Nova Scotia, and the federal government to ensure the potential negative impacts from storm surges and flooding within the Chignecto Isthmus are addressed.

Child care and education

• Create 3,400 new child-care spaces in both urban and rural areas while ensuring fair and equitable funding for Francophone centres.
• Provide interest-free loans to cooperative and non-profit child-care facilities to assist with start-up costs.
• Improve recruitment and retention of early child-care educators by increasing wages and benefits and achieve pay equity.
• Create support services for child-care centres to meet the needs of neurodivergent children.
• Ensure the inclusion policy has adequate resources to be implemented effectively.
• Establish a universal school breakfast and lunch program, locally designed to suit community needs.
• Revise Policy 713 to incorporate the changes recommended by the Child and Youth Advocate.
• Collaborate with unions to implement a retention and recruitment strategy for all school staff.

View the New Brunswick Green Party platform

 

Liberal Leader Susan Holt makes an announcement about property taxes in Saint John. (Avery MacRae/CTV News)

LIBERAL PARTY

Health care

• Establish and support 30 community care clinics that offer local, collaborative care from a variety of health professionals.
• Develop a multi-pronged plan to improve working conditions, prioritize support for wellness, and increase retention for all health-care professionals.
• Improve the compensation model for doctors and primary care providers, including fair pay for those who perform after-hours care.
• Work with regulators to improve foreign credential recognition for nurses, doctors, and other health-care professionals already living in New Brunswick.
• Review and expand health-care professionals’ scope of practice to optimize their roles.
• Provide the RSV vaccine for free for seniors and vulnerable people.
• Increase access to fertility treatments by funding one round of IVF.
• Make contraception free.
• Ensure New Brunswickers can better access abortion services by amending regulation 84–20.
• Ensure mental health professionals are located in as many community care clinics as possible.
• Increase residency seats for psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, and develop a retention and training plan for psychologists, counsellors, and other mental health professionals, specifically within schools.

Affordability and housing

• Immediately introduce a rent cap.
• Overhaul property tax to ensure stability and fairness.
• Stop the degradation of public housing and invest in both the renovation and creation of new public housing.
• Provide funding for safety and accessibility retrofits for New Brunswick seniors and people with disabilities who wish to stay in their homes.
• Immediately remove the provincial sales tax (PST) on electricity, providing 10 per cent relief from home energy bills.
• Immediately remove the Gas Tax, saving New Brunswickers around four cents a litre at the pumps.
• Provide wraparound services to those experiencing chronic homelessness, starting with housing, and support a community case management approach. 
• Explore a plan for a basic income for New Brunswickers living with disabilities.
• Increase social assistance rates given the rising cost of food and housing, while ensuring regulations are not penalizing recipients. 

Education and child care

• Retain and recruit teachers, support professionals, educational assistants, and bus drivers.
• Improve working conditions for all education professionals, prioritizing support and wellness.
• Increase financial support for those entering education professions.
• Develop a fresh 10-year plan with teachers and other education professionals, experts, and parents to set a collective vision for education.
• Support inclusive education for all students by reviewing class composition and identifying and filling the staffing, training, and resourcing gaps impacting the effective implementation of Policy 322.
• Provide nutritious universal free breakfast and pay-what-you-can lunches to all New Brunswick students leveraging local, New Brunswick food where possible.
• Provide staff and students with the necessary tools to create a positive learning environment while properly utilizing personal electronic devices and other technologies.
• Continue Grade 1 early French immersion and expand access points for Grade 6 entry.
• Eliminate the 4,000-child waitlist for affordable child care.
• Retain Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) by improving working conditions and increasing wages.
• Increase financial support for ECE students.
• Continue implementing $10-a-day child care across the province, making it more accessible.

Economic development

• Balance the budget.
• Provide grants to New Brunswickers who study to work in high-priority fields, such as health care, the building trades, and education.
• Focus immigration pathways on critical labour needs.
• Review and simplify the foreign credential recognition process.
• Invest in the right sectors at the right time, including emerging opportunities in energy, technology, agriculture, and manufacturing.
• Deliver an energy plan that provides affordable, reliable, clean energy for New Brunswickers and New Brunswick businesses.
• Increase productivity by reviewing and improving investment tax credits.
• Close cell coverage and high-speed internet gaps across the province.
• Increase New Brunswick exports by diversifying international markets and working with Canadian neighbours to remove trade and credential barriers posing economic roadblocks.
• Consider arts and culture as important economic and social drivers.
• Leverage an asset management plan for transportation infrastructure to ensure roads and bridges are prioritized for repair or replacement and contractors are paid on time.

Environment

• Update the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to guarantee everyone in New Brunswick has the right to clean air and water.
• All new schools, hospitals, long-term care homes, and other public buildings will be required to have modern air filtration, heating, and cooling systems, following ASHRAE 241.
• Suitable air filtration and cooling units will be added to existing infrastructure.
• Provide New Brunswick residents 25 per cent off the cost of provincial park passes to encourage exercise and spending time outdoors.
• Increase active transportation infrastructure, including walking and cycling trails, to build healthier communities.
• Increase support for home energy retrofits, free heat pump program, and introduce a provincial program for solar retrofits.
• Review and update the province’s emergency preparedness plan for dealing with the increasing number of extreme climate change-related weather events.
• Implement a coastal erosion plan to protect communities.
• Investigate alternatives to pesticide and herbicide use and re-evaluate the safety of glyphosate with new and comprehensive data specific to New Brunswick.

View the New Brunswick Liberal Party platform

New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs commits to improving students’ financial literacy skills if re-elected during a campaign announcement on Sept. 26, 2024. (Avery MacRae/CTV Atlantic)

PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE PARTY

Health care

• Expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners, registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, paramedics and pharmacists.
• Enable New Brunswick’s health-care professionals to fully utilize their range of knowledge and expertise while also reducing wait times and strain on the health-care system.
• Launch a working group on improving working conditions for nurses.
• No new supervised injection sites will be approved. The PCs will consult with communities about whether to close existing sites.
• Intervene and compel people who are struggling with addiction into drug treatment when they pose a threat to themselves or others.
• Build a new 50-bed rehabilitation centre for those suffering from drug addiction
• Launch a virtual opioid dependence program

HST and carbon tax

• Cut the HST to 14 per cent in Budget 2025 and then to 13 per cent in Budget 2026.
• Launch a renewed legal challenge against the federal government’s carbon tax.
• Won’t implement a consumer carbon tax, regardless of future changes at the federal level.

Education

• Introduce common sense financial literacy curriculum that covers topics such as interest and inflation, saving tools, borrowing mechanisms, and the difference between debit and credit.

Landownership

• Defend landowners in court as the province faces two lawsuits to assert Aboriginal title over the province.

Community Investment Fund

• Amend the terms and conditions of the Community Investment Fund to allow not-for-profit organizations to apply for funding to enhance security measures at their facilities.

View the New Brunswick PC Party platform