Austin's attack on 'leftist agendas' aims to draw sharp contrast with Liberals

Kris Austin's comments this week blaming federal Liberal policies for the death of a homeless man in St. Stephen may have shocked some New Brunswickers — but they are hardly a surprise.

The Progressive Conservative public safety minister relishes the opportunity to draw sharp ideological contrasts with his Liberal opponents.

"All of these issues that we're facing today is based on Trudeau policies, leftist agendas, that is degrading our society that we're seeing right across the country," he thundered in question period on Wednesday.

Austin had just recited a list of Higgs government initiatives on crime, drug addiction, mental health and homelessness — challenges he explicitly blamed on what he considers a too-far-left philosophy adopted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

If it's a polarizing approach, it also represents a binary that the minister, a former leader of the populist right-wing People's Alliance party, not only welcomes but advocates.

Last year, Austin told CBC News he created the Alliance in part to pull the PC party in a more firmly conservative direction, away from the political centre where it used to compete with the Liberals for votes.

"I think there needs to be a separate distinct ideology between the two," he said.

"That's a problem with democracy if you don't have those distinctions. … Today I feel there is a little more of a difference between the two."

Austin qualified the concept at the time, saying the differences should not go "so far that that we don't have that common purpose and that middle ground that we can find at times on public policy."

Still, his appetite for the contrast is clear — and not unique in the party.

Faytene Grasseschi, the Christian conservative activist poised to become the PC candidate in Hampton-Fundy-St. Martin's in the next election, says her supporters "appreciate having an authentic conservative option in our province."

As with Austin, the implication is that previous PC governments led by Richard Hatfield, Bernard Lord and David Alward were insufficiently conservative.

"People recognize society is poorly served when all parties are on one side of the political spectrum — an authentic conservative expression is important to the health of democracy," Grasseschi said in a recent email to CBC News.

"Only a strong conservative option provincially will push back to protect our province from damaging federal policies."