Liberal and Green Leaders Withdraw From COVID Committee As Striking Healthcare Workers Forced To Back Off – New Brunswick | The Canadian News

Half of New Brunswick’s all-party COVID-19 cabinet committee announced that it will be withdrawing after the province issued an emergency order to force striking healthcare workers back to work.

New Brunswick Green Leader David Coon made the announcement that he would be withdrawing via Twitter shortly after Prime Minister Blaine Higgs made his move official.

Twenty minutes later, interim Liberal leader Roger Melanson did the same.

“I’m out,” Melanson told reporters via Zoom.

“As the leader of the opposition, I need to be able to freely hold this government to account and explain to the people of New Brunswick what this government is doing and how they are doing it, so I am off this committee for sure. “

While Melanson’s motivation appears to lie squarely at Higgs’s feet, Coon says his only reasoning is the perception that the method used is not appropriate for the circumstances.

“Using an emergency order, circumventing our democratic processes in this province, is unacceptable,” he tells Global News.

“The Premier had a lot of other options before this point that he decided not to use,” says Coon.

“If he was determined to order health workers to return to work, he should have brought the legislation on return to work to the Legislature. That is the democratic place to debate such proposals. “

Staying at the table, People’s Alliance leader Kris Austin says his counterparts are countering the foundation of the committee itself, which Prime Minister Higgs has touted as a way to ensure that the response to the pandemic takes precedence over the political divisions.

“What they are doing is not symbolic, it is political. Period, ”Austin says in an interview with Global News Friday.

“I know that my voice at the table is more important than my voice on the sidewalk.

“So Mr. Melanson and Mr. Coon, if they want to do politics, the public will judge them, but I’ll stay.”

Austin previously said he would support a form of return-to-work legislation if health care in the province needed it.

Says Friday’s measure fit the bill.

“Anyone with a rational objective point of view would understand the position,” he says.

“It’s just irresponsible not to do that right now.”

Austin says he has heard from CUPE members who say they don’t know what offer the government has made, as well as CUPE members who don’t want to go on strike at all.

As long as this emergency order is in effect, Coon says he will not return to the committee.

Melanson says he’s out for good.

With only Higgs and Austin remaining, it’s unclear in what capacity the committee will continue, if at all.

Coon says that, in the meantime, he trusts Public Health leadership, but wants to see a committee within the legislature look for an answer.

“We have a good public health team in New Brunswick,” he says, “and ultimately we will hold the prime minister accountable in the legislature.”

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