Throne speech outlines changes tied to health care, affordability and education

19 November 2024

FREDERICTON (GNB) – Today’s speech from the throne provided an outline of the government’s priority areas and planned actions.

Lt.-Gov. Brenda Murphy read the speech on behalf of the government, opening the first session of the 61st legislature.

“While there is much to be grateful for in our beautiful province, our communities face many significant challenges, including access to health care, finding affordable housing and ensuring kids have the opportunities they need to thrive,” said Murphy. “Our province is full of resilient, creative and compassionate people who are ready to tackle those challenges head-on; people who believe that, by working together, we can build a brighter future. To do this, we need to be bold and collaborative and to address these challenges in fresh new ways.”

The speech detailed the government’s six priority areas and detailed its legislative and policy agenda. The priority areas are: health care, affordability and housing, education, economic development, environment and trusted leadership.

“Today marks a fresh start for our province as we embark on the kind of meaningful and rapid change New Brunswickers are ready for,” said Premier Susan Holt. “The speech from the throne shows how we are hitting the ground running on the key priorities that we have heard from New Brunswickers, as well as the six commitments that we are moving on right away. We have laid out our path toward building a brighter future for New Brunswickers – both the long-term approach we are taking to face the province’s challenges, and short-term measurable commitments for the year ahead.”

Initiatives outlined in the throne speech include:

Health care

• Establish and support 30 community care clinics over the next four years, including 10 in 2025.
• Invest in technology, including centralized wait-lists and connected digital records, to ensure the seamless and secure exchange of patient information.
• Issue recognition and retention payments to all nurse practitioners, registered nurses and licensed practical nurses working in the public hospital and long-term care systems.
• Overhaul the compensation model for doctors and primary care providers to align with team-based collaborative care clinics.
• Work with Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick and the Centre de formation médicale du Nouveau-Brunswick to create more training and residency seats, with the first 10 seats being added in the 2025-26 academic year.
• Create a mental health advocate position to champion the cause of New Brunswickers struggling with mental health and navigating the system.
• Expand the Nursing Home Without Walls model, over four years, to the 55 homes not yet included in the program to ensure that those who want to stay home can do so for as long as possible.
• Invest in wages for personal support workers and resident attendants to increase hours of care.
• Reduce wait times for mental health care by including mental health professionals in as many community care clinics as possible.

Affordability and housing

• Provide a rebate equivalent to 10 per cent of the sales tax on electricity consumption to all residential customers who pay HST on their electricity bills.
• Introduce amendments to the Petroleum Products Pricing Act to remove the cost of the carbon adjuster component from the weekly adjusted price of gas, which will save New Brunswickers about four cents per litre at the pumps.
• Introduce a rent cap of three per cent to make life more affordable for all renters and update the Residential Tenancies Act.
• Invest in the renovation of existing public housing units and the creation of new public housing, and in long-term and sustainable core funding for transition homes and front-line domestic violence services.
• Explore a plan for basic income for people living with a disability.
• Increase social assistance rates so people are better equipped to deal with the rising cost of food and housing.

Education

• Increase financial support for those entering education professions.
• Work with teachers, other education professionals, experts and parents to develop a fresh 10-year plan and establish a new, collective vision for education.
• Ensure schools have adequate staffing, spaces and resources to provide classroom support in literacy, numeracy and learning behaviours.
• Provide a nutritious universal free breakfast and pay-what-you-can lunches to all New Brunswick students, leveraging local food where possible.
• Continue Grade 1 early French immersion, while expanding access points for Grade 6 entry into the program.

Economic development

• Provide grants to New Brunswick students who choose to study for jobs in high-priority fields, such as health care, building trades and education.
• Review and simplify the foreign credential recognition process so that people can get to work faster and easier.
• Phase in pay equity in the private and health-care sectors using a model similar to those used in Quebec and Ontario.

Environment

• Increase support for home energy retrofits and the free heat pump program, as well as introduce a provincial program for solar retrofits.
• Ensure that all government buildings are net zero and that the vehicle fleet, including school buses, is all electric by 2035.
• Increase conservation lands and waters to 15 per cent from 10 per cent.
• Implement the recommendations of the legislative assembly’s standing committee on climate change and environmental stewardship to increase restrictions on pesticide and herbicide use, including examining the banning of aerial spraying.

Trusted leadership

• Reform the province’s right-to-information legislation to ensure more information is accessible to the public.
• Make the province’s public health office independent.
• Ban out-of-province political donations to increase public trust in all political parties.
• Appoint a deputy minister to lead the Official Languages Secretariat, establish a standing committee on official languages and implement the recommendations of the report issued by Judge Yvette Finn and John McLaughlin.
• Review and respond to the systemic racism commissioner’s final report and work on a timely plan to implement its recommendations.

The complete text of the speech from the throne is available online.