Susan Holt will be the first female premier in the history of New Brunswick. Holt's Liberals finished with 31 seats up from 16 at the start of this election. Holt won her seat in her new riding of Fredericton South-Silverwood.
Holt thanked the women who came before her in the New Brunswick legislature.
The Progressive Conservatives had 25 MLAs at the start of the election and fell to 16 seats. Blaine Higgs lost his seat in the Quispamsis riding to Aaron Kennedy (Liberals). Higgs tried for a 3rd straight government but was defeated. The PCs were in power since 2018.
The Green Party went from 3 MLAs to 2 in the 2024 election. Party leader David Coon won in his new riding of Fredericton-Lincoln. Coon has been in charge of the NB Greens since September 22, 2012. There was a very loud cheer at Coon's speech when he noted that Blaine Higgs will no longer be the premier.
We normally don't note when a party doesn't win a seat but notable that the right-wing Party People's Alliance didn't come close to winning a seat.
Brian Gallant was the last Liberal premier in New Brunswick, serving as premier from 2014-2018. Gallant was sworn in as premier at the age of 32.
You wouldn't have to strain yourself to see this election as a reaction to the extreme changes to Policy 713 of not allowing children under 16 to use preferred names and pronouns of students without parental consent. Housing, health care, and food prices with the influx of people int the province will be key issues for the new Holt Government.
We hope — not just for our Balance of Food colleagues — that Holt promised free school breakfasts in the province, a promise Higgs did not keep in 2020.
Higgs bragged during the campaign that his government has had 6 consecutive budget surpluses. The influx of new residents might mean some long-term spending to ease the burden on the province.
🚨BREAKING: Blaine Higgs has declined the October 9th leaders’ debate hosted by Rogers. Is he afraid of losing another debate to @susanholt ?
— Liberal Party of NB | Parti Libéral du N.-B. (@NBLA_ALNB) October 2, 2024
There were 2 debates. Higgs blew off the second debate. He attended the first debate.
There was certanly fire within the Progressive Conservatives at a possible leadership race. A few cabinet members resigned over Higgs' leadership style.
We were startled, but not surprised, to see that Higgs' concession speech was only in English in the only official bilingual province in Canada. Holt and Coon had plenty of French in their speeches.
Sherry Wilson of the Progressive Conservatives won her riding despite terrible comments over residential schools.
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Over 130,000 cast early ballots. Voter turnout in the last two elections has been around 66-67%.
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Holt is the premier-designate and will be New Brunswick's first female premier. Danielle Smith (Alberta) is the other current female premier. There is the Saskatchewan race next week, which could change that dynamic. Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia are the only 2 provinces that have never elected a female premier.
photo credits: CBC News (x2); @MarchellC
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