New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative leader disrespected the province’s residents by presenting the death of a Liberal supporter as funny, the party said as it called for Blaine Higgs to apologize.
Higgs drew the party’s ire during remarks made at his Thursday campaign kickoff event in Quispamsis, N.B., held hours after he dissolved the legislature and officially triggered the campaign leading up to the Oct. 21 provincial election.
His speech to party faithful included a second-hand anecdote of a conversation that purportedly took place in 2014 between a party volunteer canvassing for votes and a newly minted supporter. At the time, Higgs was seeking re-election as the legislature member for the Quispamsis riding, which he has represented since 2010.
The conversation, the story went, began when the canvasser was leaving the home of a woman who had just voiced her intention to vote for Higgs.
“(The volunteer) said: ‘Thank you very much. That’s great.’ Then she started …