PC MLA Andrea Anderson-Mason is latest Higgs caucus member to leave politics

Progressive Conservative MLA Andrea Anderson-Mason says she won't run again in this year's New Brunswick election, stepping away from politics after six years representingFundy-The Isles-Saint John West.

The former cabinet minister says she has concluded that members of the legislature don't play a meaningful role in developing policy and legislation in the Higgs government.

"When I practised law, it was really important to me that whatever file I took, that it was a file that I firmly believed in and that I felt that I could make a difference," she told CBC News in an interview at a picnic site in her riding overlooking the Magaguadavic Basin.

"I think what I have found is that the role of the MLA may not exactly be what a lot of people think that it is, and I could probably use my skill set better in other places."

No. 12

Anderson-Mason is the 12th PC MLA elected in 2020 to decide not to run again this year.

She's also the last of the half-dozen Tories, who rebelled against Premier Blaine Higgs last year on Policy 713, to bow out.

She and five colleagues voted against the government in favour of an opposition motion that called for further study of the policy changes by Child and Youth Advocate Kelly Lamrock.

WATCH | 'The process got interrupted': PC MLA on departure, Policy 713 vote:

PC MLA Andrea Anderson-Mason latest N.B. Tory to leave politics

4 months ago

Duration 3:32

Former attorney general was one of six PC MLAs to vote against Premier Blaine Higgs on Policy 713.

That motion passedthanks to the six PC votes, and Lamrock's subsequent report criticized the changes as unconstitutional.

In Friday's interview Anderson-Mason shed new light on the behind-the-scenes caucus discussions that led up to that contentious vote.

At a PC caucus meeting the evening of Tuesday June 6, "we had decided on a path forward" that involved her and Attorney General Ted Flemming meeting with Lamrock to discuss possible changes to the policy, she said.

Lamrock sent his feedback to the Education Department the following night, she said. But the next morning, Education Minister Bill Hogan announced changes that didn't match the caucus position.

"Caucus was not provided with the opinion from Mr. Lamrock, and so it just seemed like the process got interrupted," Anderson-Mason said.

"We had made a path forward. There was a common agreement of how we were going to proceed. But that's not what happened on that Thursday morning."

The changes require that school staff obtain parental consent before letting a student under 16 adopt a new name or pronoun that reflects their gender identity a violation of the rights of 2SLGBTQ+ students, according to critics.

The new version of Policy 713 is now being challenged in two separate legal actionsby the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Anglophone East district education council.

The same morning Hogan announced the changes, eight PC ministers and MLAs refused to show up in the legislature.

A week later, six of them broke ranks and voted against the government on the non-binding motion.

Anderson-Mason said she would not change her vote now if given the opportunity.

"No, I wouldn't," she said.

"All that motion ever embodied was exactly what we as a caucus had decided on that Tuesday night," she said.

"We had decided as a group that we would consult, we would proceed with caution, and we would make sure that what we were doing was legal and appropriate."

First elected in 2018, Anderson-Mason was the attorney general for the first two years of the Higgs government but was shuffled out of cabinet after the 2020 election.

She was reluctant to say Friday what she believes the Policy 713 episode reveals about Higgs's leadership approach, which has been criticized openly by many party supporters over the last year as too top-down.

"I don't think that's fair for me to comment on," she said.

"He has a style of leadership that works for him, and in fairness, he has been able to get a great deal across the plate, a lot of great changes for the province of New Brunswick, and there's really not much more I can say about that."

She rejected suggestions made by some other PC members, however, that the party has made a sudden turn to the right in the last two years.

She pointed out she pushed back against mandatory vaccination legislation in 2020 a strongly conservative position, she argued, that predates more recent criticism of the premier's direction as too extreme.

Anderson-Mason said she hadn't told the premier about her decision not to run again, but had been trying to contact him to arrange a meeting.

"I purposely went out of my way last week to communicate with him and I'll make that effort again," she said.

"I have heard on a couple of interviews that he said that he's working through the individual differences in his party and in his caucus. I haven't received that call from him yet, but I will make the effort to make sure we have that conversation."

In a statement to CBC News, Higgs said he wanted "to thank Andrea Anderson-Mason for her service to our province as the MLA for Fundy-The Isles-Saint John West, and I wish her well in her future endeavours."

The statement did not respond to a request for a comment on her account of the June 2023 caucus discussions about Policy 713.