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Premier Blaine Higgs's promise to reform social assistance left some opposition members on the CBC Political Panel wondering whether people in need or government finances will drive the changes.

Higgs suggested in his recent state of the province address that employers could be asked to offer employment to people on social assistance if the government helped with transportation costs, a common barrier to lower-income people trying to enter the workforce.

Reform to the system is needed, Higgs said, to better serve the 36,000 people on social assistance in New Brunswick.

Green Party MLA Megan Mitton said she would be willing to collaborate on reforms. (CBC)

But Green Party MLA Megan Mitton said she had some concerns about what that might mean, particularly for people with disabilities on long-term social assistance, and what job conditions and wages would be offered.

"Would they be paid less because of where they are coming from?" Mitton asked.

She expressed a willingness to collaborate on social welfare reform but said she wants more details from the Progressive Conservatives.

"It raises the question of the clawbacks that currently happen under social assistance that prevent people from getting a leg up," Mitton said.

Provincial Education Minister Dominic Cardy insisted here would be no clawbacks in the reforms.

"Clawbacks act against job creation," he said.

Education Minister Dominic Cardy said there will be no clawbacks in the PCs' reforms to social assistance programs. (CBC)

Liberal MLA Roger Melanson said many social assistance programs under discussion are already in place in New Brunswick, but agreed they are not enough.

"I guess I'm agreeing here we have to look at how we deliver these programs, and we do have to look at how it can be improved," he said.

But he cautioned against an approach to reform based solely on trying to fix the province's finances.

"We can't forget these are people," he said. "We need to be really sensitive to their needs."

People's Alliance MLA Michelle Conroy said an overhaul of the system is needed.

Liberal MLA Roger Melanson said while many social assistance programs already exist, they could probably be expanded and reformed. (CBC)

No agreement on climate change solution

The four parties on the panel were at odds over how New Brunswick should approach climate change.

Higgs has made it clelar he plans to fight the federal carbon tax being imposed in April. The Progressive Conservatives acknowledge something must be done to combat climate change but say the federal carbon tax and rebate program will be ineffectual.

"For the federal Liberals, it's a revenue generator, not a climate policy," Higgs said in his speech to business people in Fredericton.

Mitton said she doesn't want to be the "poster girl for carbon taxes" but believes it is time to start incorporating climate change into New Brunswick's fiscal plans.

She said the $1,200 figure used by Higgs for the annual cost of the tax for individual New Brunswickers is incorrect.

People's Alliance MLA Michelle Conroy said her party doesn't think the federal carbon tax is an effective way to change behaviour. (CBC)

"The person who wrote the study said that number should not be used anymore," she said. "There are other academic researchers who have crunched the numbers and said it would not be that much at all. It would be closer to half."

Conroy, of the People's Alliance, said a carbon tax still isn't a solution.

"I believe we need to do something and we need to do something fast, but [this] tax is just another tax ... in an already overtaxed province," she said.

Cardy reiterated the Progressive Conservatives' stance against the carbon tax and said the party believes the province needs a carbon plan, not a tax.

Both Cardy and Conroy wondered whether polluting behaviour would be changed much by taxing emissions only to return money in a rebate.