Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs, taking the stage in an election debate Wednesday, defended his management of health-care problems in New Brunswick, while two other party leaders promised to do a better job.
With just over three weeks to go until the Oct. 21 election, Higgs, Liberal Leader Susan Holt and Green Leader David Coon faced off in Moncton over a range of subjects, including health care, housing, education, Indigenous title claims, and the gender identity policy for schools.
Throughout the debate, Higgs was on the defensive and during the health-care discussion, accused Holt of lying about the number of New Brunswickers waiting for a family doctor.
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Higgs accuses Holt of ‘falsehood’
On health care, Higgs pointed to his promise to expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners, nurses and other health-care professionals, and said he wants the province’s two health authorities to collaborate more.
Higgs called out Holt several times for what he called inaccurate numbers, mainly after Holt said there are 180,000 people in the province without access to a doctor, which he called an “absolute falsehood.”
Numbers shared by the PC Party say that the number of people registered on New Brunswick Health Link, without access to a doctor, was 38,446. An additional 62,940 New Brunswickers are registered who don’t have a doctor but receive primary care services through existing clinics.
However, a Liberal Party spokesperson said the 180,000 number comes from a study by the New Brunswick Health Council from June, which found that only 79 per cent of New Brunswickers had access to a primary care physician in 2023.
Statistics Canada estimated that 834,691 people lived in New Brunswick in 2023, and 21 percent of that, which according to the Health Council study does not have access to a primary care physician, would be 175,285 people.
Safe-injection sites
On the issue of safe-injection sites for people using drugs, Holt did not answer when asked if she would fund any more safe-injection sites.
She said that she is not aware of any new applications for them and that the province needs more treatment beds for people with addictions.
Higgs said there will be no more safe-injection sites if his government is re-elected. Instead, he pushed the proposed Compassionate Intervention Act, which would have allowed the government to force some people into treatment.
“I don’t know how much longer we can continue just to walk on by individuals that need our help, that are crying for help in many cases and think it’s okay to keep them on drugs and have that be in existence,” Higgs said.
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Responding to Higgs, Holt acknowledged he wants to “help people help themselves” but said he hasn’t taken any action, including creating new rehab beds, to make this possible.
Coon said he would never prohibit safe-injection sites, but they are only part of a larger picture solution to issues around addiction.
“Safe-injection sites ensure that someone’s mom, someone’s dad, someone’s daughter, someone’s brother doesn’t die,” he said.
Coon also reiterated his promise to spend $380 million annually on health care.
Higgs defends record on building schools
On education, Holt said the Higgs government has been too slow building new schools, and Coon echoed her sentiments, saying there’s been a lack of planning as the population has grown.
“Once it was clear that our population was going to start growing, we needed to hit the ground running and ensure that the infrastructure, the services that we needed to serve everyone that was coming,” Coon said.
Higgs hit back and said he’s proud of the province’s growth, adding that schools were closing six years ago because of a population decline.
“The pain of progress is real,” Higgs said. “And to suggest that we should have had schools just waiting is not real, and to suggest we can build them overnight is not real.
“So yes, we have challenges in housing, we have challenges in school construction and it’s based on a province that’s growing.”
More to come …