The Higgs Years

Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Gabriel Arsenault about his book The Higgs Years. Blaine Higgs was the premier of New Brunswick from 2018 to 2024. Leading his Progressive Conservative Party through six years of headline-making policy, in September 2024 he called an election, trying and failing to become the first premier since Liberal leader Frank McKenna to win three consecutive terms in that province. The Higgs Years analyzes Higgs's premiership, particularly in terms of his party's electoral pledge fulfillment record. Contributors portray Higgs as both a unifier and a divider: he successfully reduced New Brunswick's public debt, implemented ambitious governance reforms, and managed the province's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a bipartisan manner. Yet he also intensified ethnic and linguistic divisions, embraced an executive style of governance, and emphasized wedge issues, such as abortion restrictions and gender identity in schools. While Higgs largely avoided divisiveness in critical areas such as housing, health care, and the environment, he was nonetheless known to alternate between being a unifying and a polarizing leader. Drawing on original data from the Polimeter, a nonpartisan tool that measures whether politicians keep the promises they make, The Higgs Years raises vital questions about the integrity of the relationship between voters and their government in New Brunswick. Gabriel Arsenault is associate professor of political science at the Université de Moncton and associate researcher at the Donald J. Savoie Institute. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.