Change and accountability were two of the key focuses for Premier Susan Holt during her first State of the Province address.
The province’s newest premier spoke to a sold-out crowd of business leaders in downtown Fredericton on Thursday night.
Holt also invited several of her cabinet ministers on stage to share specific metrics they will use to measure success in key areas such as health care and housing.
“These 15 metrics are metrics we are going to stick with for the next four years,” Holt told business leaders during her address, which was also broadcast by Rogers TV.
“It’s critical to choose your measures carefully because these 15 measures are going to focus the attention of civil service. They’re going to focus our investments to make sure that we are putting our energies in the right place.”
Among the metrics outlined by Holt and her cabinet ministers on Thursday night include:
- Increasing the number of New Brunswickers with a primary care provider from 79 per cent to 85 per cent
- Increasing the number of people able to receive care from their primary care provider within five days from 31.4 per cent to 37.4 per cent
- Preventing the nursing home waitlist, which currently stands at 1,088, from growing
- Recording an average of 6,000 housing starts and 444 affordable housing starts in each of the next four years
- Decreasing the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness from 1,050 to 621
- Increasing literacy and numeracy scores while lowering chronic absenteeism rates from 32.5 per cent of students to 26 per cent
- Improving indoor and outdoor air quality and increasing energy efficiency savings
- Increasing the growth rate of average weekly earnings from 2.5 per cent annually to three per cent
“New Brunswickers told us that they want to see government done differently, a government that earns trust and prioritizes transparency,” said Holt.
Meanwhile, the premier also addressed the challenges and struggles that are facing New Brunswickers.
With major U.S. tariffs potentially just days away, Holt said the province is facing “serious headwinds.”
“I can’t sugarcoat it — it’s going to hit New Brunswick really hard at a time when we’re already facing challenges in relation to our economy,” she said.
“It has changed the game in terms of what we think we’ll be able to do in the year ahead, but one thing we know we will do is support the workers and entrepreneurs of New Brunswick as we go through this.”
Holt told reporters earlier this week that our province could lose as many as 6,000 jobs if 25 per cent tariffs are implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The premier also used part of her address to encourage New Brunswickers to buy local in the fact of those tariffs.
