Former Premier Shawn Graham pitched two decades ago that New Brunswick would obtain economic independence this year. We\u2019re now ever further away.<\/p>\n
Published Jan 11, 2026 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 10\u00a0hours ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 14 minute read<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here<\/a>. Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n Economists say it still stands as the most ambitious vision for New Brunswick delivered by any premier since Louis J. Robichaud.<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the e-Edition, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalism and the next generation of journalists.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the e-Edition, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalism and the next generation of journalists.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to keep reading.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite journalists.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authors<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n In the same breath they add that, from the very beginning, it was largely unrealistic and mostly aspirational.<\/p>\n Former Premier Shawn Graham pitched two decades ago that New Brunswick would obtain economic independence by this year.<\/p>\n Self-sufficiency 2026, pinned on the dream of becoming a province no longer reliant on equalization payments, saw the Graham government set out to explore widespread changes to taxation, local government, health care, post-secondary education, the province\u2019s energy future, and the survival of its traditional economies, with all new policies to be wrapped around that self-sufficiency target.<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew that it was going to be controversial, and the controversy around it today remains in some areas,\u201d Graham said in an interview with Brunswick News. \u201cIn 2006, our government was elected on the \u2018charter for change\u2019 platform, and that created the foundation for the self-sufficiency agenda.<\/p>\n Advertisement 3<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cBut that platform was borne out of discussions with thousands of New Brunswickers around the province that wanted to restore the pride of being able to stand on our own two feet as a province and contribute to the Confederation.\u201d<\/p>\n With the turn of the calendar year, graded by its central metric to make New Brunswick a \u201chave\u201d province by 2026, the idea has officially failed.<\/p>\n The province is now statistically even further away from that goal than it was two decades ago.<\/p>\n In the 2008-09 budget, equalization was $1.6 billion, 24 per cent of total government revenue.<\/p>\n In the fiscal year ahead, a massive $3.36 billion through the equalization system is headed to the province, a figure that\u2019s up another $237 million from last year, equating to 24.6 per cent of current provincial revenue.<\/p>\n To Graham, the deadline\u2019s passing should trigger a new recircling of efforts.<\/p>\n Morning Email Telegraph-Journal<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 4<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cI strongly feel that the self-sufficiency agenda is still bold and much-needed for the province of New Brunswick,\u201d Graham said. \u201cIn today\u2019s global environment of instability, I feel it\u2019s a wake-up call, now more than ever, that the self-sufficiency agenda is relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n The story of Self-Sufficiency 2026<\/p>\n New Brunswick was bleeding people.<\/p>\n The province\u2019s population had stagnated at roughly 750,000 for roughly a decade.<\/p>\n But then in the 24 months leading up to the 2006 provincial election, that number plunged to below 745,000, a low not seen since the early 1990s.<\/p>\n Hundreds were leaving permanently each month for Ontario and Quebec. New Brunswickers were increasingly heading to the oil sands or offshore Newfoundland and Labrador for work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were losing too many young New Brunswickers to other jurisdictions,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n Advertisement 5<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n With them, the province was losing its tax base and, in turn, the ability to pay for the health care and education systems those living here wanted.<\/p>\n Graham won the September 2006 provincial election with a central campaign theme of building a self-sufficient province.<\/p>\n In one of his first moves, he appointed a two-person Self-Sufficiency Task Force.<\/p>\n Francis McGuire, the province\u2019s former deputy minister of economic development throughout the McKenna years and president of Moncton-based Major Drilling, and Gilles LePage, the former head of Mouvement des caisses populaires acadiennes and a board member at the Bank of Canada, were tasked to write a series of hard-hitting reports on what needed to change.<\/p>\n McGuire had chaired Graham\u2019s election campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I knew where this had come from, but it was now \u2018How do we get there?\u2019\u201d McGuire said in an interview. \u201cThey were pretty short on details. So when he asked, I said \u2018Yeah, I have a very clear way I want to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 6<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n McGuire said he and LePage set out to \u201cget the truth in front of people and have them face the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n Their reports \u2013 there were three \u2013 turned heads.<\/p>\n \u201cThe game was that we would go out and be as controversial as possible to float the balloon, and then they (the Graham government) could judge how far they wanted to go with that,\u201d McGuire said.<\/p>\n They bluntly stated that every little town in New Brunswick couldn\u2019t have a major employer, while underscoring that 80 per cent of New Brunswickers live within 30 kilometres of a city.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do we bring the province together economically? It is not by putting a little factory in every town. It\u2019s by understanding that society is urbanizing and that the jobs will be there, and then what we have to do is get people to the jobs,\u201d McGuire said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery little town could be a nice little town, but people are going to get in their cars and get to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 7<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n McGuire pitched the need to build roads, instead.<\/p>\n There were stern words for the province\u2019s forestry and fishing industries, arguing too many of the province\u2019s small communities were relying on them for survival.<\/p>\n \u201cToo many companies and too many communities are competing for the limited resource,\u201d read a second report, calling for a restructuring that slimmed down the number of mill towns in the province, while also upping the forest yield by 25 per cent by 2026 and reducing the amount of protected forests to 20 per cent from 30 per cent so that the remaining industry would thrive.<\/p>\n The authors said the province should also look to pump cash into worker transition funds, while compensating sawmills that voluntarily shut down and released their wood allocation.<\/p>\n The task force also pushed to spend millions more on workforce training, while calling for the renegotiation of existing labor market agreements with the feds, arguing they were, and still are, training the wrong people.<\/p>\n Advertisement 8<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be unemployed, have no education, and probably be in your 60s to get this training,\u201d McGuire said. \u201cYou should train people that are already in the workforce, upgrading skills.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s where you\u2019re going to get your bang for the buck, but it still hasn\u2019t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n The final report of the Self-Sufficiency Task Force made an astounding 91 recommendations in total, touching everything from education to local government to health care to culture and tourism.<\/p>\n \u201cIn retrospect, I should have just had four,\u201d McGuire said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t succinct enough, and I blame us, Gilles, myself, and Brian Dick (appointed the deputy minister for self-sufficiency). We made a mistake not focusing on these four, because I think these four still today are the ones you need to focus on.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond the need for expanded infrastructure and workforce training, the task force was arguably ahead of its time in suggesting that New Brunswick could help solve its workforce problems through massive growth in the availability of child care, following Quebec\u2019s lead in being home to some of the highest levels of female workforce participation in the world.<\/p>\n Advertisement 9<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The two authors also wanted New Brunswick\u2019s population to grow roughly 6.2 per cent annually for 20 years to grow the province out of federal dependence.<\/p>\n McGuire and LePage specifically called for a provincial population of 850,000 and a labour force of 400,000 by 2026.<\/p>\n To do that, the two argued for a greater emphasis on industries that could create thousands of jobs and not just a few hundred, noting that, prior to 1991, New Brunswick had zero call centre jobs, but had 50,000 in 2006.<\/p>\n Despite an initial decade of almost no population growth, it\u2019s a target New Brunswick has actually hit, buoyed by the federal Trudeau government\u2019s immigration policy post-pandemic that has pushed the province\u2019s current population to more than 868,000 people.<\/p>\n But it was the fourth recommendation that proved the most contentious.<\/p>\n In a first \u201cNew Brunswick Reality Report,\u201d the two proposed to increase corporate tax rates \u2013 rather than lower them \u2013 in order to jumpstart the province\u2019s dismal productivity levels.<\/p>\n Advertisement 10<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The extra government revenue was to be used to offer giant investment tax credits for companies that spent on new technologies, products, and expansion, the authors arguing that a low general tax rate was rewarding all companies, even the ones that weren\u2019t investing to make their business more competitive.<\/p>\n McGuire argued it was just paying for larger vacation condos for business heads.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving the lowest business tax rate in the country, that was important to Shawn, it was totally not important to us,\u201d McGuire said. \u201cBecause you got it no matter what you did.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you sat on your ass and went to Florida you got it.\u201d<\/p>\n The task force actually pitched to raise the business tax rate to as high as 15 per cent.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then give a huge, and I mean huge, investment tax credit for anybody putting money into automation, digitization,\u201d McGuire said, arguing only now, two decades later, the Carney government has made small steps toward doing so.<\/p>\n Advertisement 11<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The idea was that businesses would search out ways to grow, create jobs, and wealth.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was radical, but that\u2019s what we need,\u201d McGuire said. \u201cWe still need it today.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t increase the revenue coming in and the money companies and individuals make, you\u2019re never going to get self-sufficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n McGuire pointed to a recent study completed for the New Brunswick Business Council that showed the province still ranking last in the country today in subsidies to industry relative to economic output.<\/p>\n That\u2019s as average annual private sector economic growth dropped from an average of 3.3 per cent from 1997 to 2006 to only 0.5 per cent since.<\/p>\n Graham said McGuire\u2019s plan was indeed too radical.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t agree on everything,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was heavily bent on investment tax credits, and I wanted to flatten our tax rates in New Brunswick to come close to matching Alberta\u2019s rates so that we could be a beacon for investment in the province.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 12<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Graham\u2019s government brought in public policy expert Jack Mintz to develop a highly ambitious tax reform plan that would have reduced income tax rates and raised consumption taxes.<\/p>\n The original plan claimed the tax cuts \u2013 up to $500 million a year \u2013 could be funded through a carbon tax and a boost to the Harmonized Sales Tax. The HST, it was proposed, could be put back up to 15 per cent \u2013 an increase of two percentage points.<\/p>\n \u201cHe felt strongly towards investment tax credits, and I felt strongly towards the Jack Mintz report on branding New Brunswick as the place with one of the lowest personal income tax rates in the country,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n McGuire still disagrees.<\/p>\n \u201cI read the Jack Mintz thing. I thought it was stupid,\u201d McGuire said.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember having an argument with Shawn on \u2018wouldn\u2019t a general tax break be better?\u2019\u201d McGuire added, later downplaying it as more of a discussion. \u201cAnd I answered, \u2018No, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s more expensive. It doesn\u2019t reward the good players. It rewards everybody.\u2019<\/p>\n Advertisement 13<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s not the kind of thing that will bring things forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Energy policy<\/p>\n In the end, neither Graham nor McGuire got their way.<\/p>\n The Liberal government also pushed forward with aspirations to secure among the most competitive hydro rates in the country, with hopes to lure large industrial users to the province.<\/p>\n The attempted sale of NB Power ended up being political suicide.<\/p>\n \u201cThe deal with Hydro Quebec would have eliminated $5 billion worth of ratepayer debt, and today that has the potential to grow to $14 billion because the Mactaquac replacement project is now pegged at almost $9 billion,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n But it was an effort that had to be rushed, the former premier laments.<\/p>\n The global financial crisis put new pressure on New Brunswick\u2019s already endangered industrial base.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we knew we had to move quickly, even though it was the last year of our mandate, on trying to achieve competitive power rates that matched or mirrored Quebec power rates,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n Advertisement 14<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n A political calculation had to be made.<\/p>\n The Graham government had already pushed forward with personal and corporate income tax cuts, beginning with the 2009 budget, putting in motion a multi-year plan to merge the province\u2019s four tax brackets into two and lower the corporate tax rate to eight per cent by 2012.<\/p>\n But it hadn\u2019t moved on an HST increase to offset that massive revenue loss.<\/p>\n Internally, the Liberal government decided it couldn\u2019t pursue both the sale of NB Power and raise the HST and expect to win the looming 2010 provincial election.<\/p>\n \u201cIt meant we were going to give up a large amount of revenue and put it back into the pockets of hard-working New Brunswickers, and it also meant that we were going to have to spend the political capital to put the points back on the HST that the federal government had just given up,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n In the aftermath of the Graham government\u2019s 2010 election loss, the Progressive Conservative Alward government erased the Liberal income tax cuts to fill what was a massive fiscal void, instead of opting to increase the HST to offset it.<\/p>\n Advertisement 15<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The subsequent Gallant Liberal government then added a fifth tax bracket and raised the HST as well.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we never achieved what we were trying to achieve, which was flattening personal income tax brackets,\u201d Graham said. \u201cThat, today, is an unfortunate reality, we\u2019re one of the highest tax jurisdictions in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n The former premier now wonders out loud if the tax changes in their entirety would have stayed in place if his government had raised the HST themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cIn hindsight, we should have reversed those two policy initiatives, and that way, with a higher HST, it would be difficult then for successive governments to raise the income tax brackets,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n Why self-sufficiency went sideways<\/p>\n There was a lot more to Graham\u2019s self-sufficiency efforts.<\/p>\n On the energy file, SWN Resources was lured to the province where it spent $40 million in taking first steps towards developing the province\u2019s natural gas resources, a file that became polarizing in the years after.<\/p>\n Advertisement 16<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n An agreement in 2010 with French nuclear giant Areva to study the feasibility of a new light water nuclear plant at Point Lepreau was reached, but later shelved by the incoming Alward government shortly after the provincial election.<\/p>\n Graham also commissioned a large-scale municipal reform.<\/p>\n The result was arguably the most comprehensive study of local governments since the Byrne Commission of the 1960s. The Finn Report, written by Jean-Guy Finn, laid the groundwork for incremental municipal reform.<\/p>\n Other big ideas, such as consolidating health care administration, went ahead with the reduction of eight regional health authorities to two. It created Ambulance New Brunswick, changed the French immersion program, and created an independent community college system.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge that the self-sufficiency agenda ran into is that New Brunswickers elected three successive one-term governments who all wanted to put their own stamp on the direction of the province, which deviated from the self-sufficiency agenda,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n Advertisement 17<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cThen you had global seismic events that took the government\u2019s eye off the agenda, the first one being the 2009 global economic recession.\u201d<\/p>\n The recession meant the cancellation of a planned $5-billion Irving Oil refinery expansion.<\/p>\n Sawmills closed across the province, citing uncompetitive power rates and dramatically increasing production costs.<\/p>\n The hole got deeper.<\/p>\n Brian Dick, the deputy minister for self-sufficiency, told Brunswick News in an interview that he worked with every department in government to carry out the agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we were starting to make progress when the recession hit,\u201d Dick said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt brought the province to an economic halt.<\/p>\n \u201cIt became the central agenda. That had to be the focus. A huge recession everywhere made a huge difference. There were two or three years where everything was going in the other direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 18<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n McGuire said the plan derailed when government lost focus.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Frank McKenna days it was very clear what the objective was. It was jobs, because jobs create dignity and it creates revenue so we can pay our own way on some things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole bureaucracy was mobilized towards that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what was clear in 2006 that was no longer the case. They\u2019re not mobilized around the central idea, and they need a game book.\u201d<\/p>\n McGuire said that\u2019s true now.<\/p>\n University of New Brunswick economist Herb Emery laments what he calls a lack of focus from Atlantic provincial governments on economic growth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Graham plan was a response to the economic crisis in the province of the mid 2000s, particularly to save the economy of the northeast,\u201d Emery said. \u201cOnce the industries were lost and the de-industrialized regions adjusted to their new non-industrial future, the interest in economic growth was lost.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 19<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n New Brunswick\u2019s former chief economist David Campbell still calls Graham\u2019s \u201cself-sufficiency 2026\u201d proposal the most ambitious agenda in decades.<\/p>\n But he adds that it was \u201cnever realistic,\u201d requiring unprecedented economic growth coupled with either a tax rate increase or a significant reduction in public spending.<\/p>\n Campbell said the failed sale of NB Power derailed the plan\u2019s success, while the Graham government\u2019s election loss brought about new plans.<\/p>\n \u201cA 20-year plan requires continuity beyond one political term,\u201d he said. \u201cI have called for these big plans to have bipartisan support. You get the opposition in the room and agree on the broad outline of a 10- or 20-year plan and you all agree to it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can fight about how to implement it, and the specific initiatives, but you are all pulling in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n The Alward government focused on natural resource development, while dropping most of the political baggage that the self-sufficiency agenda carried.<\/p>\n Advertisement 20<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cThere was something called the \u2018Roundtable on Self-Sufficiency\u2019 which I co-chaired for a while that was supposed to be a kind of external watchdog but it never went anywhere,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cLots of good people on it \u2013 David Ganong, Johnny Leroux, Lise Ouellette \u2013 but it had no real teeth.<\/p>\n \u201cIt survived the Alward government and shifted to focus on learning. It eventually petered out in the early 2010s.\u201d<\/p>\n Back in November 2007, the Graham Liberal government\u2019s 33-page document titled \u201cOur Action Plan to be Self-Sufficient in New Brunswick\u201d began with a call to action.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people will say this can\u2019t be done \u2013 it\u2019s a pipe dream, a Utopia. \u2018You won\u2019t be able to achieve it,\u2019 they say,\u201d reads the plan\u2019s first few lines, quoting Graham himself from a February 2007 States of the Province address.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can do it. And we must.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the naysayers are suggesting that, collectively, we can\u2019t change our destiny, then I beg to differ.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement 21<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Graham said the end result was at least \u201cthe foundation that people understand the change you have to make.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe self-sufficiency agenda was not a re-election platform for our team,\u201d he said. \u201cThe self-sufficiency agenda was a platform for all governments to build upon, because it was written by New Brunswickers who had a vested interest in seeing us become more independent, and that was going to require transformational change.<\/p>\n \u201cThe unfortunate reality, though, is that three successive, one-term governments did not have the opportunity to build upon that agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIt was overly ambitious. But I\u2019m a firm believer in at least trying to hit the ball out of the park.\u201d<\/p>\n *A second story will ask: \u201cWill New Brunswick ever be self-sufficient?\u201d<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Share this article in your social network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breadcrumb Trail Links New BrunswickNewsThe IssuesFinance & Taxes Former Premier Shawn Graham pitched two decades ago that New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-404092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"t-shirt\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0109-lb-self-sufficiency.jpeg\")
An old t-shirt from the Graham years is pictured displaying his government’s goal of self-sufficiency by 2026. Photo by Adam Huras\/Brunswick NewsArticle content<\/p>\n![\"Telegraph-Journal\"](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/20.3.0\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-tj.svg\"){kind=logo}
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<\/p>\n![\"Shawn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0109-lb-self-sufficiency-graham.jpg\")
Former premier Shawn Graham SUBMITTED<\/p>\n![\"0109](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0109-lb-self-sufficiency.jpg\")
Francis McGuire Brunswick News ArchiveTax changes<\/p>\n![\"0109](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0109-lb-self-sufficiency-2.jpg\")
Quebec Premier Jean Charest, left, and New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham sign a roughly $5 billion deal between NB Power and Hydro-Quebec in the fall of 2009 in Fredericton. Brunswick News Archives<\/p>\n