Government Operations Committee on March 28th, 2024

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Do you disagree with the independent analysis, which says that we're overcharging New Brunswickers at the pump?

[Blaine Higgs]

We have the EUB looking at that. That's the purpose.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Sir, we've seen that greenhouse gas emissions have come down by 8%. You've mentioned that this policy has done nothing and there's no measurable impact, but the Canadian Climate Institute would disagree.

Are you prepared to table a plan for New Brunswick that could achieve similar or better results?

[Blaine Higgs]

Worldwide, absolutely.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

For Canada.

[Blaine Higgs]

Well, Canada, that's the whole point—we're thinking in a bubble. Do you think that, if China is building 80 to 90 coal plants a year that would dwarf anything we can do in Canada, we're safe and we're solving climate change—

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

So you don't think we should do anything in Canada.

[Blaine Higgs]

I propose to make a difference worldwide that we can actually achieve. We can—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Premier Higgs.

That is our time, Mrs. Atwin.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have six minutes. Go ahead, sir.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here and for sharing your views, Mr. Higgs. I'm not going to ask you about the carbon tax, simply because it doesn't affect Quebec. I'd rather focus on other topics.

Let's start with the transfers related to the Official Languages Act. How much support does New Brunswick get for its linguistic minority?

[Blaine Higgs]

I don't know the exact number, but it is significant.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

It's a significant amount.

In concrete terms, how does that money help francophone communities in New Brunswick?

[Blaine Higgs]

Well, certainly in our case, we have two school systems that are operated through that. There are cultural centres that are set up because of that. We have obviously the francophone Vitalité and Horizon, two health networks in the province.

We see culturally a real advantage in New Brunswick. I see an advantage that we're certainly not utilizing to its full extent. I have said from the beginning that I wanted to see better results in our anglophone school system so we could actually have every child graduating fluently bilingual, at least conversationally. My goal is that if we are truly a bilingual province, we all should be graduating kids to better speak in both languages. The money that's used to enhance francophone programs and cultural centres is welcome from the federal government, and we do utilize it.

I might add another point. We also increased our francophone immigration through COVID and beyond when we were looking to maintain the ratio of francophones here in the province and not let that slide. It runs at around 33%. In the last couple of years, we have immigrated more francophone immigrants than any government for a long period of time, and we've increased our percentage.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you.

You say you'd like to see better results. Is it a matter of not having enough funding, or does it have more to do with how the funding is allocated?

[Blaine Higgs]

Well, as I've said probably many times, measuring the performance of money actually sent out is always difficult. It's more of a headline on how much money was spent than how much was achieved. That doesn't apply only to the francophone...or to money from Ottawa in that regard. I'll mention it in relation to the current announcement regarding health support and the $480 million, I think, over 10 years. While it is great to see that, when you think about $48 million per year falling into several buckets in the province, will it be noticed in the $3.8-billion budget for us? It would be certainly less so in a bigger province.

My point is that we need a clinical information system in our province, and it will be about a billion dollars. I would like to see targeted money as it comes from the federal government, because we can't do all this stuff otherwise. I would like to see us focus on real change in health care and be able to put it in a major solution that will have a significant impact.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I was actually asking about linguistic minorities, but I was getting to health care.

The provinces joined forces in calling on the government to increase health transfers with no strings attached. Would you mind quickly going over what you were asking for?

[Blaine Higgs]

Well, we would prefer to have no strings attached, for sure. I think some provinces achieved that. I don't think we did, but we were clear that we would identify exactly where the money was going. Many of the items we could agree on, in that sense. That's where we provided that information on where we would use it, and that was accepted.

I'd go back to game-changers in health. I feel like health is our biggest challenge. It's the biggest challenge in any election. It's the biggest challenge federally or provincially, even though we know it's a provincial responsibility. But we can make some big game-changing improvements in our health care across this country. A lot of that comes with sharing data. A lot of that comes with an information system that can flow not only around the province but also around the entire country and that helps us get better and learn from each other's experiences.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have about a minute and 20 seconds.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

All right.

I hear you, Mr. Higgs. You said that you didn't get the funding without strings, but that you agreed on the areas where the money would go. Looking at it, though, I see that the funding the government announced didn't match what you were asking for. Is that right?

[Blaine Higgs]

We were given a suite of things that the money could be used for. My preference would be to put it in clinical information and management systems, because I think that's what will make the biggest impact.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Very good. Thank you.

I'm going to switch topics now. I told you I wasn't going to ask you about the carbon tax, but I do want to ask you what you're proposing as an alternative and why you aren't joining the carbon market and the carbon exchange.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You'll have to give a brief answer, Premier Higgs.

[Blaine Higgs]

The other solutions are very evident. They went through them at great length. I think the other solution is for us to get outside of our bubble, to think bigger, to think about impacting the world emissions and what we can do with our tremendous energy sources here in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. Bachrach, I'd say that I hope you're feeling better, but you're probably still under the weather.

Go ahead for six minutes, please.