Susan Holt

Early Life and Family

Susan Holt was born and raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She was educated in a French immersion program, enabling her to become fluently bilingual. Her first jobs were as an ice cream server and grocery store cashier. Holt attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry in 1998 and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in economics in 2000.

Holt grew up a passionate rugby player. Her family enjoys outdoor activities, including running, hiking and camping. She is married to Jon Holt, and they have three daughters.

Business and Community Engagement

After graduating from university, Susan Holt returned to Fredericton. She worked in sales, human resources and senior management with information technology companies, including Xerox Canada (2000–01), Manpower Australia (2001–04), Manpower India (2004) and Cognos (2004–07) in Ottawa. She returned to Fredericton in 2007 to work for Chalk Media (2007–09) and then Research in Motion (2009–10), which acquired Chalk Media in 2009.

Holt left the private sector to become CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce. She worked to ensure that local businesses were helped to improve and grow through organizing networking opportunities and special events. She was chosen as one of Atlantic Canada’s Top 50 Emerging Leaders in 2010.

From 2011 to 2015, Holt served as president and CEO of the New Brunswick Business Council. Comprised of 26 CEOs from New Brunswick’s largest businesses, the council worked with entrepreneurs and other leaders in the private and public sectors to build and diversify the province’s economy.

An engaged and active citizen, Holt has served on boards dedicated to helping young people. These have included Actua, a national non-profit linking colleges and universities to encourage involvement with science, technology, engineering and mathematics; 21inc, which offers leadership development for young people; and Propel ICT, which supports young entrepreneurs. Holt also served on the boards of the New Brunswick Lung Association, the Joint Economic Development Initiative and the Fredericton Playhouse.

Career in Politics

In February 2015, New Brunswick premier Brian Gallant appointed Holt as one of three people to serve on the New Brunswick Jobs Board secretariat to grow the economy and create jobs. Holt became the chief of business relationships. She also earned the Liberal Party nomination in the riding of Fredericton South for the 2018 provincial election. But she finished second to Green Party candidate David Coon.

On 6 August 2022, Holt defeated Robert Gauvin, T.J. Harvey and Donald Arsenault on the third ballot to win the leadership of the New Brunswick Liberal Party. In April 2023, Holt won a seat in the legislature in a by-election in the riding of Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-Saint-Isodore. In so doing, she became the province’s leader of the Opposition.

Premier

In the 2024 provincial election, Susan Holt ran in the riding of Fredericton South-Silverwood. Holt’s Liberals competed for votes with the Green Party and Premier Blaine Higgs, who had been premier since 2018 and had led the Progressive Conservative Party’s majority government since 2020. Holt criticized Higgs for his leadership style and right wing policies. She also argued that his inability to speak French was an impediment in the officially bilingual province. In the 33-day campaign, Holt focused on issues related to health care, housing and the cost of living.

On 21 October 2024, the Liberal Party was elected to a majority government with 31 of 49 seats. Susan Holt became New Brunswick’s first female premier. She celebrated the increased number of francophone and bilingual members in the legislature and that the number of women MLAs had risen from eight in 2014 to a record 17 in 2024.

Premier Holt met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on 12 and 13 November 2024. Among the issues discussed was President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to raise tariffs on Canadian goods. Holt also told Trudeau that her government would accept the $5-million Canadian Institutes for Health Research grant that the Higgs government had turned down, to study atypical neurodegenerative illnesses in the province.

Two days later, Premier Holt released mandate letters to each of her 18 Cabinet ministers that outlined departmental priorities. Health Minister John Dornan, for example, was told that the premier expected 10 community clinics to be opened within 18 months. Indigenous Affairs Minister Keith Chiasson was instructed to renegotiate fairer tax agreements with First Nations. And finance and energy minister René Legacy was directed to remove the four-cents-per-litre gas tax and the 10 per cent sales tax from electricity bills.

A challenge in implementing those and other initiatives was made clear when Legacy released a fiscal update. It projected not the $40-million surplus that the previous government had predicted but rather a $92.1 million deficit.

(See also Politics in New Brunswick; Premiers of New Brunswick.)