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Trudeau’s Liberals are rallying around a campaign that avoided Justin Trudeau, focused on broad issues like health care, avoided parents’ rights and ousted a weakened and unpopular incumbent facing an internal rebellion. Conservatives should be grinning from ear to ear.

New Brunswick Liberal Leader Susan Holt scored a landslide victory Monday when she ousted Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs. Holt ran an impressively disciplined, well-oiled campaign that set to zero on reversing the decline of the province’s health system.

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Ironically, it was the same message that threw the PCs in Nova Scotia to one upset win in 2021allowing them to overcome a 20-point deficit to win a strong majority government and unseat the provincial Liberal government. Health care is in a sorry state across Canada, but it is especially horrible in the Maritimes. It’s a proven losing issue for incumbents, but a powerful weapon for challengers.

Many of the most enthusiastic supporters of Holt’s victory are federal Liberals who don’t live in the Maritimes and saw Higgs’ defeat as a sign that the Tory populist tide is a mirage. Additionally, many others took the PC defeat as proof that parental rights are a losing issue.

Higgs’ PC government became a trailblazer, unabashedly espousing the principle that parents, not teachers, should have greater authority over what happens in their children’s public schools. It’s a power struggle between families and the state, and the battle lines have been sharply drawn along left-right political lines.

Policy 713, legislated and amended by the Higgs government, required parents to be informed if their children, under the age of 16, changed their names or pronouns while attending public school. Subsequent revisions to Policy 713 clear that if that notification would put the child at risk of physical or mental harm, there would be alternatives provided to keep the child safe.

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Self-identification as trans or other LGBTQ identities has increased dramatically among younger generations, with Gen Z Canadians seven times more likely to identify as trans or non-binary than those age 76 and older. The development of these identities among adolescent children can have enormous implications for the rest of their lives.

It’s a valid issue, and it won’t go away because progressives want it to.

As a self-proclaimed pro-family faction, conservatives must continue to bravely engage in battles to protect parents’ rights. They must also do so in a manner that does not dehumanize anyone and keeps people, especially children, safe. If a child truly feels threatened and fears the consequences of their parents discovering personal changes in their lives, they should never be put at risk.

Extenuating circumstances aside, fighting for the principle that parents and families have ultimate power over their child’s development should be central to conservatives. To state that Policy 713 was a major reason for the defeat of the Higgs government should raise eyebrows, as it was one of his most popular policies. It’s more likely to have helped save more PC seats than if it hadn’t existed at all.

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And there’s evidence that New Brunswick parents don’t want their child’s personal development in the hands of teachers, who aside from PTA night, are usually complete strangers.

A poll in NB showed voters were at least shared on Policy 713 – 50% supported, 35% opposed, and the rest were undecided. This may explain Holt’s decision to take a half-assed stance on the policy change. Holt told the Brunswick News in the beginning of October that her Liberals would allow all students from sixth grade, around age 12, to use the names and pronouns they want at school, without parental consent, as long as they can be shown to have the ability to do so .

Parental rights extend beyond informing parents of changes in pronouns or names. Sexually explicit representations were documented that present in British Columbia public schools, which is unacceptable.

Of course, the BC grassroots organizations OVER when they filed complaints about the material with the RCMP, claiming it was child pornography. However, it is still inappropriate content that should be limited to certain sex education classes among older students.

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If such explicit content is enough to give movies an R rating, restricting them to ages 17 and up in theaters, the same graphic depictions shouldn’t be readily accessible in public school libraries.

Unlike Holt’s New Brunswick Liberals, Eby and the NDP left finger to finger with Rustad’s conservatives on parents’ rights and public schools for over a year, with consequences. North Surrey, BC’s fastest growing city, is home to many neighborhoods where Indo-Canadians make up huge portions of the population or outright majorities.

It’s also where numerous ridings that were considered NDP strongholds were unexpectedly flipped by BC Conservative candidates, many of whom are citizens who immigrated to Canada and made it clear. they object what happens in schools. Immigrant and minority communities were at the forefront of the debate on parental rights in BC and many are not comfortable with the materials and programs being introduced.

As the polls show, there is broad support for parental rights across Canada. That’s why Holt skillfully dodged or danced around the issue whenever possible during the campaign and kept the focus on health care. He also did his best distance on Trudeau’s behalf.

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Blaine Higgs and the PCs didn’t match the energy or substance of Holt’s strong campaign focused on health care and instead made a HST cutting their centerpiece.

The PC government have still been excellent fiscal stewards and deserve full marks for bringing stability and restraint.
Not coincidentally, this was also one of the calling cards of Stephen McNeil’s Nova Scotia Liberal government. He had a hawk eye for balanced budgets and fiscal stability, only for his successor, Iain Rankin, to be toppled by underdogs in the Nova Scotia PCs, who promised to spend tens of billions to improve the health system.

If the Tories have a lesson to learn from Higgs’ defeat, it’s that governing and campaigning like partisan chartered accountants will only get you so far.

Higgs also had a take-it-or-leave-it style that alienated much of his caucus, leading to many of his sitting MPs abandoning his government, while other PC they spoke openly against his leadership. Such public displays of dissent are a horrible sight for a government and dramatically undermine credibility.

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Given the focus and content of the provincial campaigns in BC and New Brunswick, and the recent rebellion in Trudeau’s caucus, the federal Liberals celebrating Holt’s victory as a validation of their government is quite something.
Conservatives should indulge them.

Trudeau’s Liberals are rallying around a campaign that avoided Justin Trudeau, focused on broad issues like health care, avoided parents’ rights and ousted a weakened and unpopular incumbent facing an internal rebellion.

Conservatives should be grinning from ear to ear.

National Post

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