The Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), a right-wing lobbying group that describes itself as pro-life, recently sent leaflets to 160,000 homes in New Brunswick accusing provincial schools of “pushing” an unspecified transgender agenda. Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs was called on to condemn the leaflets.

New Brunswick Liberal Party Leader Susan Holt — Higgs’ main rival in the October provincial election — condemned the flyers as an attack on students and teachers, but ignored their implications for 2SLGBTQ+ New Brunswickers.

Green Party Leader David Coon called on the Prime Minister to publicly repudiate what he saw as a clear attack on 2SLGBTQ+ students.

Meanwhile, the CLC has not minced its words. It has made it clear that its primary goal is to return Higgs to power.

Maritime populism

The anti-trans leaflet illustrates what is at stake in the October 21 elections. All elections are important, but this one lights the way to power for a particular form of maritime political populism, linked to a strange brand of evangelical Christianity and supported by organizations from other parts of the country.

The CLC is not interested in public health, education, jobs, or housing—the primary concerns of New Brunswickers. It wants to keep a right-wing, openly anti-queer government in power.

The election is a referendum on the leadership of Higgs and a Conservative Party that bears little resemblance to the one that won in 2020.

Higgs came to power through the vagaries of New Brunswick’s plurality electoral system. After retiring from an executive position at Irving Oil, the province’s largest and most politically influential corporation, Higgs won election in his local constituency to become finance minister in 2010.

He became party leader in 2016 and premier in 2018, when the Conservatives won the most seats in the provincial legislature despite receiving less than 32 per cent of the popular vote.

Abandoned Rules

The COVID-19 pandemic has helped Higgs. As prime minister, he relied heavily on an all-party committee and scientific advisers to craft policies that made New Brunswick a model for effective pandemic response. He used that success to win a snap election in 2020, then promptly abandoned the very policies that had underpinned his success.

Since 2020, Higgs has rebuilt the provincial Progressive Conservatives, forged links with so-called evangelical dominionists, and incorporated select members of the anti-bilingual People’s Alliance of New Brunswick (PANB) into his party. Most importantly, the Conservatives have adopted one of the most radical anti-queer agendas in Canada.

Read more: Get Out of My Way, Danielle Smith: What Canadians Need to Know About New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs

At the center of the controversy is Policy 713, passed by the Conservatives in 2020 to protect 2SLGBTQ+ students. Higgs claimed he knew nothing about the policy despite being informed of it twice.

In May 2023, his government announced it was reviewing the policy, saying it had received complaints from parents. But it did not.

A freedom of information request filed by a University of New Brunswick lecturer generated virtually no complaints, as did a later request filed by Kelly Lamrock, New Brunswick’s children and youth advocate.

Higgs’s handling of the issue prompted a brief caucus revolt and a series of resignations, most of them moderate progressive conservatives whose constituencies had significant suburban middle-class populations.

Erosion of rights

The scene in New Brunswick is important for reasons that go beyond the details of Policy 713. For the first time in New Brunswick’s modern history, the provincial government is waging a campaign to reduce civil rights and protections.

Higgs has speculated that he could go further and revisit issues such as gender-affirming healthcare. His government is also threatening to disband locally elected District Educational Councils that fail to follow government guidance on 2SLGBTQ+ policies, effectively removing any vestige of local educational control.

All of this underscores the dramatic transformation of conservatism in New Brunswick. The Conservatives were already unpopular with New Brunswick’s French-speaking voters, but their full-throated support for PANB representatives is sure to deepen the province’s linguistic divide as well.

Read more: New Brunswick’s linguistic divide is a microcosm of Canada

What the polls suggest

Polls conducted before the campaign suggest that this is a toss-up, but one possible outcome is a majority Conservative government. The majority system puts the Conservatives within reach of a majority government, who poll on just over 35 per cent support.

This will force voters to make difficult decisions.

My constituency of Memramcook-Tantramar is an example of this. It is home to one of the three Green members in the provincial assembly. All the parties are attacking it because it is not a safe Green seat.

Voters concerned about civil rights and student safety face a difficult choice. The Green Party can’t win a provincial election and defeat Higgs, but the Liberals can, creating a dilemma for voters.

This illustrates how the development of anti-queer politics creates situations that may not meet voters’ expectations and limits their choices.