Top Saint John minister quitting Higgs cabinet, legislature seat
CBC
A top minister in Premier Blaine Higgs's government says she is resigning from cabinet immediately and will also quit as a member of the legislature "in the near term."
Arlene Dunn says she made the decision "after much consideration and discussion with my family" but did not provide any reasons in a statement released Friday morning.
She said she made the decision "with mixed emotions. … Serving the people of New Brunswick and representing the wonderful people in my riding of Saint John Harbour has been a true privilege and honour of a lifetime."
Dunn told CBC News she would not be granting interviews about her resignation.
Higgs was scheduled to speak to reporters about her decision later Friday morning.
The premier is not required to call a byelection to fill a vacant seat in the 12 months before a scheduled general election.
Dunn's riding is considered a key battleground in the provincial election scheduled for this fall.
The Liberals have nominated Saint John city councillor David Hickey to run there while the Greens have chosen Mariah Darling, an activist and education co-ordinator with a local LGBTQ organization.
Dunn was seen as a star candidate when she was elected in 2020 and was handed several cabinet responsibilities including economic development, immigration and Indigenous affairs.
She took on post-secondary education, training and labour in June 2023 after Higgs shuffled his cabinet in the wake of a revolt over his changes to the education department's Policy 713 on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Dunn opposed the changes but was not in the legislature the day six other Progressive Conservative MLAs voted against the government on the issue.
Higgs said the fact she was not there for the vote was why he kept her as a minister after dumping two of the others who broke ranks.
"I didn't think we should have touched that. I think we should have stayed away from it," she said of Policy 713 the day of the shuffle, but beyond that, "I do have confidence in the leadership of the premier."
Dunn's announcement came just hours after Natural Resources and Energy Development Minister Mike Holland announced he'll be leaving politics when the provincial election is called this year.
While his party has made a cause célèbre out of its battle with the Speaker, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has periodically waxed poetic about the House of Commons — suggesting that its green upholstery is meant to symbolize the fields of the English countryside where commoners met centuries ago before the signing of the Magna Carta.