N.B. premier says she won't stay in office past 2 terms
CBC
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says she plans to stay in office for a maximum of two terms — if the increasingly polarized and impatient political climate allows even that.
Holt told CBC News in a year-end interview that she recognizes her current popularity, and the good will of New Brunswickers, won't last forever.
"We're expecting it to end any minute now," she joked, "because that's the reality of politics."
The new premier said she's hopeful that New Brunswickers will see her keeping promises — from improving health care, housing and education to relatively quicker measures like a cap on rents and the removal of the HST from power bills — and re-elect her in 2028..
But if she does win a second majority mandate, it will be her last.
"I don't have any plans to serve for a third term. I don't know if my my family would last for eight years," she said.
"So really we're just focused on delivering right now to the commitments we made to New Brunswickers."
Holt emphasized that the two-term maximum is "for me," suggesting she hopes to hand off to a successor as Liberal leader who can lead the party to another win.
Her majority victory in the Oct. 21 provincial election was the most lopsided win in New Brunswick since 2010, and the biggest winning margin for the Liberal Party since 1995.
In a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute, 53 per cent of respondents said they approved of her performance as premier so far, compared to 28 per cent who disapproved.
That put her in third place among Canadian premiers for approval ratings — a contrast to former premier Blaine Higgs, who frequently was near the bottom of the Angus Reid rankings.
But there's no guarantee Holt's popularity will last.
No New Brunswick premier has managed to win two consecutive majority governments since Progressive Conservative Bernard Lord — and even Lord barely scraped back in with a one-seat majority for his second mandate.
Holt says it's become easier for an impatient electorate to get angry and to express it.
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