Brian Gallant Inspired By Early Family Financial Struggles To Campaign For Fair Economy
FREDERICTON – David Campbell, a New Brunswick economic development writer and consultant would say, “It’s about the economy, stupid,” the name of an insightful and interesting blog that he’s written for years.
Others like Krista Ross of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce put it more diplomatically, arguing that the provision of social services like health care and education depends upon a robust economy that generates tax money to pay for them.
But however they frame their arguments – bluntly or more gently persuasive – many business people, economists, and economic development consultants and experts say much the same thing: a healthy economy is a foundation for a strong province.
With this in mind, I had conversations with some of the leaders of the province’s main political parties about the economy in advance of the vote next Monday, September 24. On Tuesday, we published my conversation with Green Party Leader David Coon. Today we hear from Liberal Party Leader Brian Gallant.
Here is an edited and condensed version of our conversation:
What is it about your life experience or work history outside politics that would make you a good steward of the province’s economy?
When I was younger, my family went through some tough financial times. Going through the challenges together as a family was something that brought us closer together. Ultimately my parents, through their hard work and perseverance, were able to make sure that we get out of some of those challenges. But it also demonstrated to me, at a very young age, what are some of the struggles that families are going through today.
So I know firsthand what it means if there aren’t enough job opportunities out there for New Brunswickers or if the economy that we are building lacks fairness. And that’s why in this campaign we’re talking about our plan to invest as a re-elected Liberal government in things that will help create more economic opportunities and a fair economy for all New Brunswickers.
What kinds of jobs did your parents do?
My parents have worked their whole lives right up until today. They’ve worked at fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and grocery stores. When I was young we moved around the province quite a bit as my parents looked for jobs in different regions. When I was about 10 years old, we went through some of our tougher times, financially speaking, and because of the hard work of my parents, their perseverance and also support from our extended family, we were able to get through that. But it certainly left with me a deep understanding of what it’s like when your family is struggling to get ahead.
That’s ultimately why, as a government, we have invested in things like free tuition, free childcare for families that need the most support, tuition relief and childcare costs relief for the middle class. We’re investing in raising the minimum wage, investing to ensure that we have the best education system possible, and investing to advance pay equity in this province. It was certainly a time in my life that have shaped my views about what needs to happen to help more families benefit from a fairer economy.
A lot of upper-income earners are not happy with a combined tax rate above 50 per cent. You also hear about small business owners unhappy about raising the minimum wage. Are you worried about these types of policies discouraging small business owners and professionals?
In isolation, sure someone is going to make an argument that it’s a stress on their business. But I think in isolation, looking at something like that is very dangerous. When you look at our efforts over the last four years to help businesses of all sizes be able to start up in this province and thrive in this province, I think it gives a lot more context. We’ve reduced small business taxes by 44 per cent since we’ve been in government – a 44 per cent tax cut to small businesses. That is, of course, to help small businesses start up here and be able to grow here, reinvest to remain competitive and hire more people. But we also recognize that to have a healthy economy and a fairer economy, we need to put more money in the pockets of hard-working New Brunswickers.
That’s why we did raise the minimum wage four times, and that’s why we’re proposing to raise it to $14 by 2022. We also are going to help small businesses over the next four years by freezing their power rates, which we believe is yet another way to support them while we also put in parallel to that efforts and investments to raise wages for the people of our province.
And of course [we are also making] investments that are more macro in nature, but that definitely help our small businesses compete – investments in our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our airports, and our airports. All of these investments help to ensure that small businesses and large businesses in New Brunswick can get their products and services to markets around the world. Our efforts to ensure that small businesses and large businesses have a strong workforce as well should be a part of that calculation.
We are also investing massively in education to improve our literacy scores, to introduce coding in our schools, to reintroduce trades in our schools, major investments to provide free tuition and tuition relief for the middle class so that families that are struggling and people that otherwise wouldn’t be able to go are able to pursue their studies at a university or college here in New Brunswick. We are offering free childcare to families that need it the most and financial subsidies for childcare to the middle class are obviously going to help our children get the best start in life….all of these investments are helping people in a very direct way by improving access to education, the childcare and to the workforce.
It’s also helping the business community get the best workforce possible so that they can compete against the rest of the globe from right here in New Brunswick.
What are your energy-related priorities over the next four years?
It’s very important for us to protect the environment by combating climate change. We have to step up like the rest of the country and the rest of the globe. We have a plan that forces large emitters to pay their fair share; that phases out coal-generated electricity by 2030; that doubles our energy efficiency investments into our hospitals, schools and homes across the province; and ensures that consumers do not pay one cent more at the pumps.
The carbon tax is meant to curb the use of gasoline and hopefully reduce consumption. Are you concerned that the federal government won’t accept your plan not to create a new tax and to just redirect existing taxes into climate-change actions by the government?
The plan does have a price on carbon pollution for consumers. We raised the gas tax in 2015 and the argument that we’re going to make forcefully is that the gas tax increase should be credited for the efforts that we’ve been putting in to combat climate change and putting a price on carbon pollution. So there already is a sticker price that will help curb behaviours, which is the goal of the federal government. We have a gas tax that’s higher than Alberta, for example. So for them to say that there’s not that type of sticker price on New Brunswick’s plan when other provinces like Alberta have a lower one, I think that argument doesn’t hold water.
Second, we would be investing more in initiatives that will help us combat climate change over the years through the revenues that we already receive. Third, we’re going to ultimately hit our emission reduction targets by going where there are the most emissions, which is the large emitters in our province paying their fair share for those emissions. And of course by phasing out coal-generated electricity, which is also a big contributor, by 2030.
Jumping to a couple of other energy-related questions. Do you think that natural gas is a potential resource for the future of the province?
Of course, there are natural gas users in the province and we are supporters of increasing the infrastructure so that we can get more natural gas from the New England states. We believe that would help ensure that we have cost-competitive natural gas coming into Atlantic Canada and into New Brunswick.
When it comes to hydraulic fracturing, we have put a moratorium in place and we’ve made it clear that a re-elected Liberal government would maintain that moratorium unless the five conditions that we have laid out are addressed.
Would you aggressively see that those conditions are met, or is it more of a passive approach on the part of the government?
We have not seen industry step up in the way that they would have to [and] have a plan for the wastewater coming from hydraulic fracturing that would protect our communities. We would have to see a massive improvement in engagement with First Nation communities coming from any potential proponents. And that certainly has been nonexistent over the last few years. So really it’s the efforts of the proponents that have been dormant and because of that, we maintain our very clear position of a moratorium.
We also want to make sure that we’re not putting all of our eggs in one basket as Blaine Higgs and the Conservatives wanted this province to do during the campaign in 2014. If you remember, that’s the only thing the Conservatives wanted to talk about. [Their government] actually shrunk the New Brunswick economy.
We’ve been able to grow the economy every single year over the last four years without hydraulic fracturing and will be able to continue to do that over the next four years because we have a plan that’s working. It’s focused on investing in creating more economic opportunities through youth employment funds; through infrastructure investments; through supporting small businesses; through developing our natural resources responsibly; fostering innovation; investing in emerging industries like cybersecurity; supporting traditional industries like fish and seafood; investing strategically to increase important industries like back-office services or tourism.
Can you talk about the plan in your platform to create three new “superclusters” in the province’s economy?
In our multi-year economic growth plan, we have identified about a dozen growth opportunities, and we want to develop at least three economic superclusters. This is something that the federal government has pursued, something that we think has been a very successful process and that we want to mirror here in New Brunswick.
The best example that we have is the emerging economic supercluster of cybersecurity in Fredericton. This is a partnership between the private sector, the federal government, the provincial government, municipal government, non-governmental organizations, universities, colleges, and even our schools to building this emerging economic supercluster.
The growth opportunities that were identified in the multi-year economic growth plan could be great examples of potential economic superclusters. It could be maple syrup, blueberries, seafood, forestry – some of the traditional industries that are very important to our economy – or some of the emerging ones we’ve seen start to develop in our province over the last four years like fin-tech, robotics, cybersecurity, smart grid, and digital health. We’re willing to develop more than three if there are proposals that have the business case to warrant that type of investment. But we’ll commit to developing or least three with cybersecurity being one of them.
The latest Statistics Canada labour force survey showed that the province lost 1,100 jobs in August. I realize that we can put too much emphasis on month-to-month numbers, but how do you talk to New Brunswickers about the ups and downs of job numbers from month to month?
There’s going to be from day to day, week to week, month to month, statistics that go up and down, but what you want to see is the trend lines over time going in the right direction. From 2011 to 2014 [under the former Conservative government], we saw the New Brunswick economy shrink, I would argue because we saw Blaine Higgs and the Conservatives cut into education, healthcare and infrastructure investments. [Their policies] actually contributed to New Brunswick being the only province from 2011 to 2014 that saw its economy shrink.
Since then, the economy has grown every single year. It has produced more jobs today than when we became the government four years ago. It has produced an unemployment rate that has dropped from 10.1 per cent to 8.3 per cent. It has produced the largest population in the history of our province during our mandate. It has produced wages that have increased for New Brunswickers. In fact, in 2016, wages went up at the fastest rate in New Brunswick of all the provinces and is projected to grow by over three per cent again in 2018.
So the trend lines are going in the right direction. But of course there are going to be months with some ups and downs, but we’re going to continue to invest strategically to create more opportunities in a fair economy, which we firmly believe will help ensure the trend lines going in the right direction.
This was an edited and condensed conversation with Liberal Party Leader Brian Gallant, part of a series of interviews with provincial political leaders in advance of the September 24 election. Next up: New Democratic Party Leader Jennifer McKenzie.
RELATED: David Coon Says A Local, Green Economy Could Create 14,000 New Jobs