Poll predictions: Will the New Brunswick election foreshadow Canadian voting trends?

New Brunswick may be one of Canada’s smallest provinces but it’s often “a canary in the coal mine” of Canadian politics, a harbinger of things to come.

Four years ago, Blaine Higgs became the first premier to test his handling of the pandemic by calling an early election. He was rewarded with a majority government. It was the beginning of a trend that saw incumbents re-elected provincially and federally, until Nova Scotians ended the trend in 2021.

Now, as he campaigns for a third term, the PC Higgs is running as much against Justin Trudeau, as he is his provincial opponents. Higgs is echoing Pierre Poilievre with his opposition to the carbon tax and has promised to cut the HST. It’s a strategy other premiers are likely to use in their bids for re-election. They’ll be keen to see if it works in New Brunswick.

New Brunswick is Canada’s only officially bilingual province and under Higgs, its electoral politics has been sharply defined by language, with Liberals running up huge margins in Francophone ridings in the north. PC support has been concentrated in anglophone seats in the south and west where the races are much closer. So, polls reflecting province-wide popular support can be misleading, just as national popular vote polls can be.

Like Justin Trudeau, Blaine Higgs is not personally popular and some of his long-serving members are not re-offering. Unlike Trudeau, Higgs has presided over an open revolt in his caucus and has put down a very public leadership challenge.

Like the federal Conservatives, New Brunswick’s main opposition party, the Liberals, have a new leader. And they hope to make the election into a referendum on the man who leads the government, his style and the need for change.

Like the federal NDP, New Brunswick’s third party, the Greens, hope not to be squeezed out if there is a wave of change, as they battle the PC’s claim that they’ll prop up Susan Holt and her Liberals, should the Liberals win a minority. Sound familiar? It should!

There are likely to be lessons for all Canadians when New Brunswickers go to the polls on October 21.