Press release
December 3, 2025
Secrecy and partisanship on road funds must end
FREDERICTON – Green Party Transportation & Infrastructure Critic and MLA for Tantramar, Megan Mitton, is calling on Premier Susan Holt to take the politics out of road maintenance.
Mitton recently received data through a right to information request on local transportation spending, known as district projects. She found that funds tend to increase or decrease depending on whether a riding is represented by a government MLA or an opposition MLA.
“All of us in rural areas have heard rumours of politics being heavily involved in DTI decisions,” said Mitton. “The Road Ahead Plan was supposed to remove this archaic practice of political favoritism. I had no idea it was still happening to this extent, but the numbers are clear: ridings with government MLAs get more money to spend on roads.”
The numbers uncovered by Mitton show that following the 2018 election won by Blaine Higgs’ Conservatives, ridings represented by Liberal MLAs experienced a drop in funding while ridings represented by PC MLAs had an increase. Similar changes occurred in ridings that switched to PC in the 2020 election and subsequent by-elections. The allocations have been even more generous for ridings represented by Transportation ministers.
“The Deputy Minister claims there is a formula for making these allocation decisions, but the numbers I received make it clear that government MLAs, and the Transportation Minister in particular, get more money to spend on roads in their ridings than opposition MLAs do,” added Mitton. “It shouldn’t matter who your MLA is, people deserve safe roads everywhere.”
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