N.B. road fund data shows pattern of favouritism by governing parties

For years, there has been “glaring inequity” in the way the province has allocated the millions of dollars in its county roads budget, according to Department of Transportation Minister Chuck Chiasson.  

The minister acknowledged the longstanding problem Wednesday in the legislature, in response to a question from Green Party Deputy Leader Megan Mitton, the MLA for Tantramar.

Earlier that day, Mitton shared the results of a Right to Information request she filed with the department, which showed that allocations in electoral districts tended to increase or decrease depending on whether it was represented by a government MLA or an opposition MLA.

The data includes eyebrow-raising instances, where big changes in allocated funds coincided with political changes.

One example is in the riding of Shippagan-Lamèque-Miscou, which had a healthy allocation of $200,000 in 2019. The following year, when MLA Robert Gauvin left the PC caucus to sit as an independent, the amount dropped to just $50,000.

The former riding of Gagetown-Peticodiac was held by PC MLA Ross Wetmore for a decade.  In 2018,  under the Liberal Gallant government, the riding received just $50,000. Then after former PC premier Blaine Higgs formed the government, the allocation went up to $420,000, peaking at $713,000 in 2022.  

Mitton also pointed out several instances when district budgets increased significantly after their representative became minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. 

The most striking example is the allocation for Carleton-York, which more than doubled the year after MLA Richard Ames was appointed minister. The district was allocated more than $1 million in 2024-25, out of the total $7 million in the fund.

The allocation for the riding of Kings Centre also more than doubled in 2019 and 2020, the years after MLA Bill Oliver was appointed minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.

“The numbers are clear. The ridings with government MLAs got more money to spend on roads,” Mitton said in the legislature. “The Road Ahead plan was supposed to remove this archaic practice of political favoritism.”

The Road Ahead plan is the department's three-year capital infrastructure plan, which it updates every year. The plan includes lists of planned projects, and covers $1.5 billion in investment over three years.  

District project allocations sit outside the Road Ahead plan. The $7 million fund is allocated according to electoral districts, and according to Chiasson, there hasn’t been a clear formula or system for determining allocations until this year.

“Imagine my shock when I see that my predecessor actually had over a million dollars in his county project money,” Chiasson told reporters Wednesday. “I mean, that was just ridiculous to me, and it stood out like a sore thumb.”

Chiasson said that once he realized the problem, he asked department staff to create a formula to fairly allocate the funds.