Gallant Liberals play spouse card on campaign trail

Good evening,

Monday's election is inching closer, and we have loads of stories to keep you informed and ready to debate that one uncle of yours at the dinner table.

As politicians lean heavily on job creation pledges for regions with high unemployment, northwestern New Brunswick is desperate for people to fill hundreds of vacancies. It's just one nugget of many including a couple of political comebacks the CBC's Gabrielle Fahmy examined in the two Edmundston ridings.

Plus, Jacques Poitras offers some insight from the campaign trail.

So, sit back and check out what we're talking about on Tuesday, Day 27:

Top headlines

• People's Alliance supports resource development, but promises opt-out referendum
  • A populist party would take one of the most divisive election issues in recent history to the people. People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin said his growing party can't walk away from the economic opportunity fracking presents, but he won't force it on communities.

• Elections NB hopes to avoid repeat of 2014 vote tabulator debacle
  • If you're unfamiliar with what happened with the vote count on election night 2014, just ask a journalist. We'll tell you all about it. This time, however, Elections New Brunswick is promising faster results and no malfunctions.

• PC candidate 'confident' Higgs, Tories will repeal Liberal judge transfer law
  • While Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs is noncommittal on the issue, the Tory candidate for Rothesay is unequivocal in his stance that, if elected, the PCs will repeal the Liberal law that shifted the power to transfer judges to the provincial government. Ted Flemming said he's is confident Higgs will share his view.

• Health care dominates leaders' forum on women's equality
  • The five main political party leaders gathered in Fredericton to debate women's issues, and the forum focused primarily on health topics, including abortion as well as funding and treatment models.

From the trail

Provincial affairs reporter Jacques Poitras reports

A lot was happening on the Liberal campaign bus last Thursday the day Brian Gallant showed reporters handwritten notes from his now-famous 2014 lunch with Blaine Higgs so one small detail of the party's election strategy went almost unnoticed.

When the bus left a stop in Napan, near Miramichi, it was one Liberal lighter.

Gallant's wife Karine, who has been at his side almost non-stop since the campaign began in mid-August, was staying behind to do some door-knocking with Andy Hardy, the party's candidate in Southwest Miramichi-Bay du Vin.

New Brunswickers first started hearing about Karine Gallant in 2016, when two newspaper reporters followed the premier and his girlfriend for day-in-the-life feature stories on their visits to various events around the province

The publicity may have had an additional benefit: in the 2014 election, then PC-premier David Alward plastered a photo of him and his wife on the campaign bus and suggested that a party leader with a family had a better understanding of issues affecting New Brunswick families.

In early 2017, Gallant and Lavoie announced their engagement, which prompted the New Brunswick Liberal party to use the happy occasion to harvest email addresses from well-wishers. Their wedding last fall generated online buzz.

Now there's a photo of the happy couple on the back of the Liberal campaign bus, and Karine Gallant is being deployed for occasional door-to-door blitzes.

The ridings she has visited so far Southwest Miramichi-Bay du Vin, Moncton Northwest and Moncton Southwest happen to be ridings that the Liberals feel they have an outside shot of winning. By sending the leader's spouse to those regions, the party can show off the couple's youthful image in two places at once.

Where the leaders were

Kris Austin:Campaigning in Fredericton-Grand Lake

David Coon:Campaigning in Fredericton

Brian Gallant:Announcement in Riverview, campaigning in Saint John and Moncton

Blaine Higgs:Announcement on Grand Manan; campaigning in Blacks Harbour and Quispamsis

Jennifer McKenzie:Announcement in Saint John; canvassing in Saint John Harbour

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