Vickers ready to outbid Higgs to keep MLA's crucial vote onside

Liberal Leader Kevin Vickers says he's prepared to intervene personally to get a new school in Saint John so he can keep MLA Gerry Lowe onside and won't say what he'll do if Lowe breaks ranks to help the Higgs government stay in power.

Vickers seemed to give Lowe, the member for Saint John Harbour, plenty of latitude Wednesday on a key budget vote to be held on March 20.

He told reporters that while he will "whip" the vote, requiring all MLAs to vote the party line to try to defeat the budget and trigger an election, Lowe would ultimately make his own choice.

"At the end of the day, Gerry will have to make a decision as to what most likely is the best scenario for him to proceed with," he said. "I have confidence that he will stay and vote with us."

Vickers said there have always been times in political history when individual members have broken ranks.

"We live in a democracy, after all," Vickers said, "and those times are up to them to decide."

Lowe said last month he could vote for the Progressive Conservative budget if it includes a long-awaited new school in Saint John's south-central peninsula and property tax reform for heavy industry, two causes he has championed since winning election in 2018.

But that vote could doom Vickers's attempts to bring down the PC government, something he said is urgently needed to stop the Tories from reviving their plans for health reform.

"The stakes are high," Vickers said. "It's incumbent that the party bring the government down at the first opportunity."

Even so, he wouldn't say whether Lowe would face consequences if he votes with the PCs.

"We'll cross that bridge. That's all hypothetical at this time."

Vital vote

The PCs have 20 MLAs in the legislature, one more than the Liberals, at 19. The People's Alliance and the Greens have three each and there is one Independent, former PC cabinet minister Robert Gauvin.

There are several scenarios in which one or two votes could be decisive, making Lowe a potential key to the PCs surviving the budget vote.

Premier Blaine Higgs said last month he won't "buy someone's vote" but added that Lowe's two issues have been "on our radar."

Asked what he'll do if Lowe demands a commitment on those issues to stay onside with the Liberals, Vickers suggested he'll outbid Higgs in trying to meet Lowe's demands.

"I would tell him I will do everything possible to ensure we get the votes necessary to bring down this government at the first opportunity and whatever I can do to make that possible, I would," he said.

While a new Liberal government would have to assess its priorities, "I would do, personally as leader of the party and should I become premier, everything in my power to ensure that school happened in Saint John south."

Last December, Education Minister Dominic Cardy announced a "quadruple bottom line multi-criteria analysis process" that he said would rank the need for proposed school projects based on objective data.

That followed Cardy's announcement in the first PC capital budget of a school in his Fredericton West-Hanwell riding, a decision he said was not politically motivated.

The minority government's second budget will be tabled next Tuesday, with a vote expected 10 days later.

Any budget vote is a confidence vote, so a defeat of the budget would trigger an immediate election.

Vickers says PCs will proceed with ER cuts

Vickers says he's determined to oust the PCs because he's convinced that health reforms cancelled by the government, including the planned nighttime shutdown of six small-hospital emergency departments, will be revived if there is a Tory majority.

"They have clear intention to proceed with these cuts whenever they have the numbers," he said.

But the Liberal leader again refused to lay out a detailed plan for how he'll address the staffing shortages and demographic changes that led the two regional health authorities to develop the reform plan.

They said it was essential to shift resources away from ERs that are under-used at night and toward areas of greater need.

Vickers said the Liberals would work on measures to improve citizens' health to reduce the causes of illnesses and would look at measures to get more doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners in rural New Brunswick.

"We'll have a strategy to ensure that does unfold," he said, suggesting a Liberal government would pay medical school tuition bills for doctors who commit to practising in rural areas.

He said hospital emergency departments "will always be available to citizens of New Brunswick regardless of where they live."

Vickers also said Wednesday he'll try to persuade Lowe to seek a second term in Saint John Harbour if an election happens. Lowe, a former city councillor, mused this week about leaving the legislature and returning to municipal politics.

"I'm going to encourage Gerry to stay with the Liberals here provincially," Vickers said. "He's an outstanding advocate for the people of Saint John."