New BrunswickOn the eve of the throne speech on Tuesday, New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says her team will be moving faster in the legislature this year compared to the Liberals’ first year in power.After a first year in power spent listening and consulting, Holt says it’s time to move faster on changeJacques Poitras · CBC News · Posted: Oct 20, 2025 4:09 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoPremier Susan Holt says that after hearing from New Brunsiwckers in the year since her election win, she plans to ‘get things rolling.’ (Mikael Mayer / CBC)Premier Susan Holt says her Liberal government will start to make more big decisions quickly as they move into the second year of her mandate.Holt acknowledged that her first year in power included a lot of discussion and consultation but said she’ll start to accelerate the pace of change in the new session of the legislature starting Tuesday.The government introduced only four substantive bills in the fall sitting last year, but will likely bring in three or four times as many by Christmas of this year, the premier said Monday.“We’ve put the foundations in place,” she told reporters. “We’ve gotten some of those initial things set up. Now we really need to get things rolling and see an acceleration of the changes that our team has made.”Holt said it was important in the year since she was elected to spend time listening to New Brunswickers, grassroots leaders and community organizations — some of whom have faulted the Liberals for not moving faster.WATCH | Here’s what Holt says is ahead after one year in power :Premier Holt says government to make good on campaign promises this yearSpeaking with reporters nearly a year after winning a majority government, Premier Susan Holt says her government is ready to speed up the pace of meeting campaign commitments. “This was the year to invest in those relationships and conversations, and now I’m just as anxious as they are to see that action is coming quickly and it will produce results,” Holt said.Green Party Leader David Coon said that after an initial burst of activity last fall to put several campaign promises into effect, “it’s been very slow.” He said the government needs to make structural changes to public services, including an overhaul of how health care is run, for example, before true reform can happen.Several other election promises remain unfulfilled, including the elimination of the cost-of-carbon adjuster that is adding eight cents to the cost of a litre of gas this week.Holt said that will happen by the end of 2025.She said a promised response to an independent report on systemic racism is in the works, while a balanced budget — another commitment — remains a long way off.With Holt set to pick up the pace, Green Party Leader David Coon says the Liberals have moved slowly since their election last fall. (Mikael Mayer / CBC)The coming year will see difficult choices to move in that direction, she said.“It’s going to be tough, and there are going to be more and harder decisions to make in the year ahead than some of the ones we’ve experienced in the past year.” Lt.-Gov. Louise Imbeault will deliver the government’s speech from the throne at 1 p.m. on Tuesday.Holt said that Wednesday will see a bill to give the province’s chief medical officer of health more independence, to avoid perceptions — including during the COVID-19 pandemic — that there was political influence on public health measures.The Liberals will also introduce legislation to put into effect some bilateral agreements with other provinces on lowering internal trade barriers. The premier repeated a commitment that changes are coming to the beleaguered, debt-laden N.B. Power.The government promised a report by a review panel, and a decision, by March 31 next year.“We’ve said from the beginning that the status quo is not an option,” she said.She promised to come up with “a path forward that doesn’t look like the path that we’ve just been on these last number of years … I cannot imagine a state where we would not take any action.”ABOUT THE AUTHORJacques Poitras has been CBC’s provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He grew up in Moncton and covered Parliament in Ottawa for the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. He has reported on every New Brunswick election since 1995 and won awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Newspaper Awards and Amnesty International. He is also the author of five non-fiction books about New Brunswick politics and history.
Liberals will accelerate pace of decision-making, premier says
