Brian Gallant

Early life

Gallant was born in Shediac Bridge. His Acadian father, Pierre, was the youngest of seven children, while his mother, Marilyn (born Scholten), was the child of Dutch immigrants who arrived in the 1950s. He also has two siblings, Melissa and Pierre. In his youth, he was educated at a variety of schools across New Brunswick; he ascribed his many moves to his parents' search for work, labouring at minimum wage jobs in convenience stores and fast food restaurants, eventually having to move the family into the small home of Gallant's grandparents. He ended up graduating from Polyvalente Louis-J.-Robichaud back in Shediac - his principal recalled telling Gallant he predicted he would one day be Premier, saying, "You have all the qualities of being a future premier here in New Brunswick." Gallant says his interest in politics started when, with nobody else offering, he became vice president of his grade 5 class, and by the end of his teenage years he decided he would pursue a political career.

In order to pay his way through university, he started and ran two small companies, eventually allowing him to graduate from the Université de Moncton with both a BA in Business Administration, and a Bachelor of Laws degree, later receiving a Master's in Law from McGill University. Whilst at Moncton, he was made president of the student federation. Afterwards, he practised corporate and commercial law with the firm Stewart McKelvey, and then became a partner at Veritas Law in Dieppe.

Early political career

His first foray into provincial politics was an ambitious one as, at 24, he secured the Liberal nomination to run against Premier Bernard Lord in the Progressive Conservative's riding of Moncton East for the 2006 election. Although in the end Lord held his seat, the election was far from being a runaway. The campaign against a sitting premier gave added exposure to Gallant.

When the Liberal government of Shawn Graham was defeated in 2010, Gallant authored a paper on reforming the Liberal Party, to make it more accessible for new members and a new generation of leaders to emerge; many of its recommendations were reportedly adopted. After Graham's resignation as leader of the party, Gallant put himself forward to succeed him, winning against former justice minister Mike Murphy and dairy farmer Nick Duivenvorden in its 2012 leadership election. After a successful by-election run in Graham's former riding of Kent, where he gained a commanding lead, Gallant was sworn into the Legislative Assembly on April 30, 2013, making him Leader of the Opposition to David Alward's PC government.

Leader of the Opposition

Heading into the 2014 election campaign, Gallant pushed a $900 million package of infrastructure spending over six years as a way to create 1,700 jobs for a province with one of the country's worst unemployment rates. He also campaigned on a tax rise for some of the province's biggest earners, and on removing property tax breaks for businesses. The Liberal platform also promised a rise in the minimum wage, from $10 per hour, to $10.30 per hour by the end of 2014, and to $11 by the end of 2017.

Premier

On an election night marred by technical glitches with the voting tabulators, the Liberals won a majority and formed the government in the 58th New Brunswick Legislature with Gallant as Premier on October 7, 2014. Gallant's first cabinet, of 13 members, was less numerous than the outgoing cabinet.

On 1 December 2015, the Gallant government opened the legislature's second session with a promise to "get tough" on the province's tattered finances. The speech from the throne documented how the province had accumulated a debt of $12.4 billion by failing to produce a balanced budget since 2007. The province spent more on interest payments than it did on post-secondary education, and the consultation of citizens called the "Strategic Program Review" had all but concluded. The province said its credit rating was at risk, and the costs to service the debt if the rating were downgraded would then rise. The projected deficit for the 2015-16 budget was at the time $453 million. A report issued the previous Friday had calculated at $300 million the benefit to the government of a two-percent rise of the Harmonised Sales Tax from 13% to 15%.

In April 2016, Gallant produced a new Twitter hashtag during a speech at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto. His speech was lavishly reprinted in the Saint John Telegraph-Journal.