The Higgs Years: Leading and Dividing New Brunswick (La collection Louis J. Robichaud/The Louis J. Robichaud Series, 4) (Volume 4) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0228024374 ISBN 13: 9780228024378

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2025

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Gabriel Arsenault is associate professor of political science at the Université de Moncton and associate researcher at the Donald J. Savoie Institute.

From the Back Cover

Directeur de la collection/series editors: Gabriel Arsenault and Donald J. Savoie

Collaboration entre l’Institut Donald J. Savoie et McGill-Queen’s University Press, la collection «Louis J. Robichaud» regroupe des publications en français et en anglais, évaluées par des pairs et qui portent sur les politiques publiques canadiennes, le régionalisme et des sujets connexes. La collection est ouverte aux chercheuses et chercheurs de toutes les universités du Canada atlantique et offre une plus grande visibilité aux travaux universitaires qui s’intéressent aux enjeux fondamentaux de politique et comprennent des analyses rigoureuses, pertinentes et non partisanes à forte valeur sociale et contribuant à des débats publics éclairés. La collection rend hommage à l’ancien premier ministre néo-brunswickois Louis J. Robichaud, reconnu comme l’un des grands leaders politiques du XXe siècle au Canada et l’un des fondateurs de l’Université de Moncton.

A collaboration between the Donald J. Savoie Institute and McGill-Queen’s University Press, the Louis J. Robichaud Series publishes peer-reviewed scholarship on Canadian public policy, regionalism, and related subjects in both English and French. The series welcomes books by researchers at all Atlantic Canadian universities and offers widespread visibility to Atlantic university research that focuses on the stakes of public policy, informed by rigorous, relevant, and non-partisan analysis that is socially engaged and aims to contribute to transparent and informed public debate. The series honours Louis J. Robichaud, a New Brunswick premier widely recognized as a leading light of twentieth-century Canadian politics and a founder of the University of Moncton.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0228024374
• ISBN 13: 9780228024378
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 354
• Editor: Arsenault Gabriel