Jake Stewart dares to be different in PC leadership race

No candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick has stirred the pot like Jake Stewart.

The two-term MLA from Southwest Miramichi-Bay du Vin has taken bold, populist positions, including ending corporate subsidies to big business, making public all government contractsand eliminating the office of the official languages commissioner.

When the former school teacher launched his campaign in May in his hometown of Blackville, he paraphrased Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, suggesting a parallel between bilingualism and U.S. segregation.

• Jake Stewart jumps into crowded race for PC leadership

And in August, he tweeted it was "poisonous" that the establishment had chosen "to back a YES man for big business, special interest & status quo."

"The last thing Saint John needed," he said in another tweet the same day, is "a former mayor unwilling to push for an end to this burden on its tax-paying citizens."

That's an apparent reference to Stewart's leadership rival Mel Norton, the former mayor of Saint John, and the huge tax break the city awarded in 2006 to Canaport LNG, co-owned by Irving Oil.

The city now wants the province's help to repeal the tax break.

Stewart's shoot-from-the-hip style isn't new.

Last December, when few Tories wanted to touch the language issue, he called for the expansion of French immersion to all provincial schoolsand for better second-language training for adults.

• French immersion needed in more schools, saysPC MLA

Several other leadership candidates have since echoed that call, and last month, Premier Brian Gallant announced moves on both points.

"I think they pay attention to some of the things I say," Stewart said at an interview at his kitchen table in Blackville.

"I believe that. I could never know for sure, but it looks to me like it's having an effect."

Rhetoric cooling

Even so, with the leadership vote looming, Stewart is cooling some of his rhetoric.

He saidhe's not critical of Norton on the LNG tax deal because "I'm not exactly certain where he stands on it" and saidhe'll support the former mayor if he wins.

Norton, who notes the tax deal was struck before he was on council, saidas premier, he'd respect the resolution by Saint John council asking the province to help repeal the tax break.

Stewart saidhis August tweets were more of a response to the PC leadership voting rules.

"There were many of who felt a few people [in the PC party] sort of paved the way for him" by tailoring the process to Norton, he said.

"The belief in rural New Brunswick and I'm a product of that environment is that anybody from Saint John or anybody that has any sort of connection at all to large-scale business, could be bad for the taxpayers of New Brunswick.

"It was a bit of an in-your-face tweet by me, but that belief is entrenched in the people I represent."

Last year, Stewart said he was rethinking his support for the previous PC government's forestry plan because J.D. Irving Ltd. hadn't started its promised modernization of its Doaktown mill.

The company said in July 2015 it would get underway this year.

• Jake Stewart's support of PC forestry plan wavering

"We are reviewing our plans for Doaktown and have no further comment at this time," JDI spokesperson Mary Keith said in an email.

Occasional misfires

Stewart's boldness on issue like language has occasionally misfired.

In a newspaper opinion piece, he slammed the "policies, regulations and initiatives taken by the commissioner of official languages," even though the commissioner can only recommend, not enact policies and regulations.

And in a PC leadership forum, Stewart said duality is "not a constitutional term." Section 16.1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees "distinct" schools and cultural institutions to anglophones and francophones.

Stewart acknowledged that means duality, but said changing the Charter "is not part of my plan anyway."

Norton wouldn't comment on Stewart's provocative tweets in August.

"It's not really my role or our campaigns' role to be critical of, or look at, the campaigns of other candidates," he said.

"We're all part of the same family. We're going to be part of the same team. And hopefully we're going to be setting goals and priorities together and working to achieve them, and for our campaign it's very important to keep our focus there."

Attracting supporters

Despite the candidates talking up party unity, some of Stewart's supporters insist he's the only candidate they'll accept.

Rick Wilkins, who ran for the People's Alliance in the last election, signed up as a PC to vote for Stewart because of his promises on language and political ethics.

"When I look at the other candidates in this race, there's really only one" willing to act on those issues, he said.

Everyone else is same old, same old.- Rick Wilkins, Jake Stewart supporter

"Everyone else is same old, same old."

Liberals say the PC party will suffer in francophone ridings if Stewart becomes leader.

"Jake Stewart is one of those candidates who's just trying to create some attention for himself, and he has," saidcabinet minister Donald Arseneault.

"Unfortunately it's a divisive kind of position and it's also a position the majority of New Brunswickers don't appreciate."

But Wilkins saidthe PCs will be in trouble if Stewart losesbecause supporters like him will move back to the People's Alliance.

"If our candidate, Jake, doesn't make it, then we're left with one of the other candidates, which is going to split the vote between the Conservatives and the People's Alliance," he said.

Stewart saidif he's eliminated from the leadership race on Oct. 22, he won't require another candidate to adopt all his positions in exchange for his support on the next ballot.

"I wouldn't say they absolutely have to move. I can ask, and I can hope, and I can suggest and recommend," he said.

"But the ones that know me well know that I'm not going to be going away, nor the beliefs that I have, nor the people I represent."