Change of government follows as New Brunswick elects new premier Susan Holt. She was
officially sworn into office as the first female premier on November 2nd, 2024. Premier Holt sat down to speak with the Baron about various aspects of her plans for New Brunswick:
“It’s quite surreal,” says Holt on the progression in New Brunswick politics, “It’s a dream come true.”
Holt is keen to start implementing her policies as quickly as possible, but will not do it alone.
“We’re doing this through the team. There’s lots of lessons to be learned from predecessors and we have an exceptionally strong team of folks,” says Holt, “we need to be bringing everybody together and trying to get everyone focused on the solutions that we need.”
Young voters played a crucial role in the election process: Holt states, “Thankfully elections New Brunswick brought back some of the campus polls. The more accessible we can make voting, the higher degree of participation among young voters.” says Holt.
Campus polls were accessible to UNB students in the advance polling stages of this election, “We have been rebuilding our young liberals Commission made-up of mostly college and university students from around the province. They were engaged in our policy making and our platform building in the hopes that they would help us build policies that would resonate with younger New Brunswickers.” says Holt.
Renting has become a large issue among many university students Holt says, “it’s been an issue in New Brunswick now for years and particularly for students. In any University town that I visited, they had real challenges with affordable housing, with available housing, and with safe housing.”
With rent rising in N.B at 12.4% over the last 12 months according to Premier- Designate Holt, providing a rent cap will help protect tenants from these vicious rises, “rent will not go up any more than 3% in any given year to try to help sort of help tame the wild increases that were seen in the housing sector.” says Holt.
This rent cap policy will go into effect February 1st, 2025.
Along with renting, student loans have become a frequent topic of discussion amongst university students, “We need to make sure that people aren’t penalized because of their parent’s decisions.” says Holt.
As the E.I connect program which assisted students with student loans vanished in 2022, Holt wants to make sure everyone has a chance at getting one.
“We need to make sure the students who are working and putting in efforts to earning an income on their own then can still qualify for the kind of supports that anybody else earning a working income could.” says Holt.
Access to women’s healthcare is also on the top of Holts list.
Under the Higgs leadership in 2022, the provincial government made access to abortion limited; however, Holt has other plans.
“The first thing we need to do is amend the legislation that prevents abortion from being paid for by Medicare, once we do that then abortion services are going to be paid for like any other healthcare service.” says Holt. Since this interview took place, Holt has already made steps toward amending this legislation.
Holt is excited to implement increased access to women’s healthcare, “we have to make it clear which pharmacists participate, which doctors and nurse practitioners are making those services available and making sure New Brunswickers know where it’s close to them and how they can access those services.” says Holt.
When asked about the Higgs overturn of Policy 713 that sparked lots of controversy in New Brunswick, Holt says she is excited to implement a policy almost identical to the policy prior, “we’re going to put in place the policy that the child and youth advocate recommended that is really similar to the original policy.” says Holt.
Holt continues to work with peers considering the safest option for the students affected, “we want to make sure that schools are safe and affirming places for everyone. The child and youth advocate did a great job connecting with all sorts of different professionals and researchers and putting forward a policy that the legislature was keen to support,” says Holt.
Social media played an important role in Holt’s campaign strategy, “We were trying to use social media as a place to engage folks, let them know where we were and what we were doing,” says Holt.
Holts campaign used all platforms to speak to young voters, “Creating online engagement
opportunities was important, come to these live Q&As and we’re going to stream them on
Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and on Facebook, and also try to create spaces where people who might not be consuming traditional media could come ask a question get a straight answer from me in a live environment.”
The record-breaking numbers of women MLAs getting voted in kindled lots of joy for Holt,
“New Brunswickers expressed support for our team and women candidates. It was a really clear message to me that they wanted positive change and they wanted to come together on the other side of this.”
Holt sees how New Brunswick changing as a province and how New Brunswickers want to be a unified group that celebrates the diversity.
The Baron would like to thank Premier Holt for taking the time to speak with our team.
