The People's Alliance of New Brunswick (PANB) has said that it will not support the government's controversial health care cuts. The NB government is planning to end over night ER services as six rural hospitals as well as a slew of other changes that include ending surgeries, ambulatory care, and acute care admissions. While I do not have this confirmed, Facebook groups that have popped up to oppose the cuts are suggesting that some medical staff have already been laid off or transferred or soon will be.
I stated that the PANB would likely go down with the ship on this and support the Higgs PC government to the end. I was wrong. They will not. I thought they would continue to support the PCs because of political calculations. As a third party, they had unusual influence over a government that needed their votes in the legislature to keep going.
In addition, one PC MLA (the former Deputy Premier) has resigned and left the PCs. He will sit as an independent. Word is that the current Legislative speaker (right now a Liberal), will step down from his position in the near future and force the Tories to elect one of their own to that position. If all this happens, this is what it will mean. The Tories will be down to 20 votes in the House (and possibly 19 if another MLA breaks away as the Sussex MLA is hinting) (22 seats - 1 resigned MLA - 21 - 1 for speaker = 20. If the Sussex MLA voted against the government, too, this would mean that they'd be down to 19 votes in the Legislative Assembly, a position that is clearly untenable).
The combined opposition would now have 28 and possibly more votes: 21 Liberals + 1 independent former Tory + 3 Green + 3 PANB. If the Sussex MLA voted with them they would be up to 29. This would be a significant defeat, much greater than Gallant's after the last provincial election.
Why was I wrong in my assessment of the PANB? The simple answer is that my reasoning gambled that the PANB would trade influence and longevity for other folks health care. They didn't. Perhaps the issue resonated with their largely rural supporters. Perhaps they read the writing on the wall. As I explained in my last post, the Higgs government was likely going down anyway. I thought the math was close. I did not spell it out but I was guessing that they could scrape together 23-4 votes depending ... on a range of factors. The Liberals and Greens would have 23-4 (depending on who was speaker) so a future non-confidence motion was not guaranteed.
The PANB might have done the same math and figured they did not want to end up carrying the Tories water. They might honestly and sincerely support rural health care and I am sure that a goodly part of their supporters do. But, they might also have recognized that the Tory ship was sinking and he little desire to go down with it.
What can the Tories do now? I don't know. They might get lucky and something else will distract attention or boost their fortunes, but I'd have to say that it does not look good for them. The Liberals have an election issue, they have a clear point of differentiation between them and the Tories, and so if one were PC, it does not look good.
I guess Higgs could try back tracking enough to keep the recalcitrant MLA in the fold. This strategy might allow him to split the opposition enough that he could stay in power. If he gave on the health care issue, this would allow the two Tories outside the fold to come back in and vote against a non-confidence motion on the grounds that they opposed health care cuts but other than that had no problems with the government. Such a strategy might, likewise, work to re-secure PANB support. This would push Tory votes back up to 24 tying them with the Liberal/Green opposition and letting the now Tory speaker cast a vote in favour of the government.
I am not going to say that is the strategy Higgs will follow but it might be the only one open to him.
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