Former provincial NDP Leader Dominic Cardy is examining his prospects in the wake of his sudden resignation on New Year’s Day.
Cardy says he is considering a move to a think tank to create policy for moving the province forward.
He believed under his leadership, the NDP punched above their weight in coming up with new policies.
“So we have an Income Trust, selling part of NB Liquor, keeping it public but making a billion dollars that we could then use to put against the debt, things like that that you can get the finances under control so you could actually invest in social programs the province needs,” says Cardy.
He was pleasantly surprised to see Blaine Higgs win the PC leadership, because they worked well together towards real change.
“He even helped get a couple of bills the NDP had drafted get into law, there’s a history of respect and cooperation there,” says Cardy. “In terms of just me as a citizen of the province I wish him all the best in the next election because I think he’s the only person talking about how we can save money on the one hand, so we can spend it sensibly on the other.”
He adds a topic that interests him is decentralizing power within the province.
“And that’s something which New Brunswick is really bad at, that we’ve got the most centralized government in the country, and Canada has the strongest central government in pretyt much any of the developed countries,” says Cardy. “We don’t give a lot of power to our local authorities, if you look to someone like the UK, the town councils are running the health and education system.”
Cardy plans to focus on healthcare and education, simply because they are the biggest issues facing the province.
Ultimately he wants to be as useful as he can be.
