J.P. Lewis is an associate professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. (Image submitted)
COVID-19 had a big part to play in the opening of the 60th session of the New Brunswick legislature on Tuesday.
That’s according to JP Lewis, an associate political science professor at UNB Saint John, who says the pandemic likely waylaid the majority Progressive Conservative government from enacting its ideal policy agenda.
He says before the pandemic, Blaine Higgs’ minority government appeared focused on health care reform and balancing the province’s budget. But those hallmarks weren’t the focus of the Speech from the Throne, which was delivered by Lieutenant-Governor Brenda Murphy.
Despite winning a majority government in this fall’s provincial election, Lewis believes Higgs’ government remains somewhat handcuffed by the pandemic.
“I think COVID-19 has blown that out of the water. Any big policy objectives Higgs’ government had pre-COVID, are now tempered by a new reality,” Lewis said.
The speech outlined the province’s financial issues but did not get specific on how the PCs would address the $183-million deficit and net debt of $14 billion.
Despite the dire updated look at the province’s finances, Lewis says it’s fairly routine for the throne speech to be short on details.
“I think you need to skim these documents with a grain of salt,” he said. “It’s setting out a plan that the government would like to accomplish. We’re not sure what rhetorical devices they use within them to essentially see how popular or unpopular certain ideas will be.”
Regarding the economy, Lewis believes the speech may have shied away from specifics because it isn’t clear just how deeply they’ll be affected.
“Maybe the government’s defense is ‘we aren’t through this, and we’re still unclear how deep the fall of the economy went, and what type of recovery is required,'” he said.
Given the province’s reliance on federal transfer payments, there could also be uncertainty around funding after Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government spent the year spending in order to keep the country’s economy afloat.
The PCs did claim to have learned several lessons thanks to the pandemic, some of which they plan to use to ‘streamline’ government services.
Lewis says it’s standard fare for conservative governments to advocate for eliminating service inefficiencies.
“What that looks like, I’m not sure. They talked about a lot of government services being delivered virtually,” Lewis said. “How much of a transformation of the New Brunswick public service takes place I think it’s unclear.”
As legislature moves on, the political science professor says he will be looking to reactions from opposition parties for indications of where this fall’s legislative session could go next.
