Tens of thousands of new N.B. voters are the X factor in fall election

The clutter and chaos of renovations at Tom Sosnoski's house in the centre of Moncton is just one indicator of the long process of settling into a new home in a new community.

Another is the ballot Sosnoski will cast in this fall's provincial election his first as a New Brunswicker.

"You show up somewhere and a part of you thinks, 'Well, I haven't lived here for so long. Do I know enough to really make much of an informed choice?" he said.

"It seems a bit quick, a bit sudden."

Sosnoski is one of tens of thousands of people who have made New Brunswick their home since the last provincial election.

The largest-ever population increase in the province's history will likely yield the largest-ever number of new voters as well a spike that, in some key ridings in fast-growing cities, may determine the winners.

"I think that could very easily result in some surprises," said Kristin Cavoukian, a member of the Anglophone East district education council, who moved to the province in 2021.

Sosnoski and his family also arrived in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WATCH | 'Maximum change': population boom shakes up electoral math:

Tens of thousands of new voters could scramble N.B. election

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Largest-ever number of new arrivals may be enough to change outcomes in key provincial ridings

They were seeking fresher air, an affordable home and a good internet connection that would allow them to work remotely in their jobs in the technology consulting field.

"It's really a wonderful place to live for remote work," he said.

"We were living in a very small apartment in the middle of Toronto and we were looking for maximum change, I guess you would say. And so this was a very logical move for that."

They found a fixer-upper in one of Moncton's oldest neighbourhoods, near a school, in the riding of Moncton South an area that often flips between Progressive Conservatives and Liberals.

Akash Rabari is another example of the population boom: an immigrant who came to Canada for university and was able to stay.

He became a citizen Aug. 12, two days before his interview with CBC News.

"I'm really excited to vote for the first time," said Rabari, who works in a telecom customer-contact centre.

Elections New Brunswick is readying itself.

"What we have seen in the last couple of months is a spike in the number of people applying to register so they can get on the list of electors," said Kim Poffenroth, the chief electoral officer.

"Every day we've had more people applying, but it's really hard to say what the number will be until after the election."

Some back-of-napkin math suggests new voters like Sosnoski and Rabari could be the X factor in October's vote.

By Statistics Canada's official count, the population has grown by 67,000 people since the last election, though the agency's unofficial real-time model yields an even higher number.

Most of the growth has been in the four largest cities of Moncton, Dieppe, Fredericton and Saint John, which collectively gained more than 24,000 people from 2020 to 2023.

Those four cities have 13 ridings between them, many of them key battlegrounds that could determine who governs the province.

A rough calculation suggests an average of at least 1,600 new voting-age residents in each of those 13 ridings a number greater than the margin of victory in many past contests.

That's why political parties would dearly love to know how the newcomers will vote. But they're hard to track.

The Liberals say they rely on lists of registered voters from Elections New Brunswick to build databases of names to target, so until the new arrivals register to vote, they're not easy to identify and contact.

The Greens, meanwhile, say one of their priorities is to ensure new voters know the party is an alternative in New Brunswick, unlike in most other provinces.

Anecdotally, Liberal Leader Susan Holt said, she has detected "a progressive vibe" among the new voters she meets.

That's where Sosnoski typical of the white-collar, urban professional from a large Canadian city puts himself on the political spectrum.

He'd like to see higher corporate taxes to pay for more resources in school classrooms, so that teachers don't have to ask parents to donate pencils and papers midway through the school year.

He also wants improvements to housing and health care, and is opposed to Premier Blaine Higgs "wasting an ounce of time" on Policy 713, the gender identity policy for school students.

"It's time to just get past this and stop focusing on this because there's a lot of work to do, a lot of serious work," Sosnoski said.

"Leave kids alone, give them autonomy, let everyone be who they are."

But it would be wrong to assume all new voters think that way.

"When I was moving here, there were a lot of people online moving to New Brunswick, groups who were moving to rural parts of the province who seemed to have very conservative beliefs too," Cavoukian said.

Indeed, Faytene Grasesschi, a well-known Christian conservative activist who moved here in 2020, was a vocal defender of Higgs's stance on Policy 713 last year.

Grasseschi, who did not respond to an interview request, is now the PC candidate in Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins.

Many Syrian and other Muslim immigrants also supported the PC changes to Policy 713 and last fall attended what was described as a "parental rights" march that included opposition to sexual orientation and gender identity being discussed in schools.

Higgs greeted them and said later that they deserve to be heard by politicians.

"We are much more diverse now than we've ever been," he said last December.

"We certainly saw that with the rally here on the lawnand the number of immigrants that were part of that. They bring a new dimension to our province so we all have to be respectful of that."

The PC Party didn't respond to a request for an interview for this story.

Rabari, who came to Canada from India, said he doesn't have an opinion on Policy 713.

But his views on another conservative issue taxation could make him sympathetic to Higgs and his PC party.

"Just cut the taxes and let the people bring more home," said Rabari, who saw the property tax bill on his new house in Dieppe almost double after he bought it last year, from $2,457 to $4,729.

He said Higgs's promise to cut the harmonized sales tax by two points "definitely" got his attention.

But he's also unhappy about his property tax bill and about health care, saying his wife's recent pregnancy was stressful because the couple didn't have a family doctor.

If there's one thing that new voters clearly have in common, it's no historical voting pattern to shape their decisions.

"Political parties have assumed that they have the support of a certain segment of the population, and I don't think that they can assume that based on the linguistic preference of newcomers, for example," Cavoukian said.

"We couldn't care less who your father was or what your family last name is. We are looking for results, we're looking for character and we're looking for policy proposals."

Cavoukian said many politicians don't seem to have adjusted yet to the idea of a province where people are starting new lives.

"That's something that the political class in this province would be wise to change, because lots of us are coming, and we're coming to stay."