8:29 - NDP leads in Caraquet eh? Only one poll but a very wide margin. I may have to eat a fair bit of crow served up by Alvy Singer.
8:42 - Anti-NDP bias at the CBC? They've been showing Caraquet as NDP for over 20 minutes but there is no sign of that on their graph at the bottom of the screen?
8:50 - NDP declared elected in Caraquet by CBC but still not on the graph????
8:52 - THANK GOD! CTV projects a Liberal government and, CTV also has called Caraquet for the Liberals. Seems that perhaps the CBC has their Liberal and NDP numbers inverted for Caraquet?
8:55 - CBC calls a Liberal majority!!!
9:01 - Fredericton-Silverwood called for the Liberals? Whoops... Congrats Mr. Miles!
9:20 - Brewer is conceding saying they won because they delivered their message of hope. Not to be harsh but she got only 12% in her riding, and got the lowest share of the popular vote for the NDP since 1974.
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Well..congrats to the NB Libs...on besting Lorne Calvert and now having the nerdiest Premier in Canada!
:)
Nice site Politico..I look forward to your broader national political commentary.
Thanks nbpolitico! I enjoyed your blog very much! Nice to see an "independent" view on the election. Looking forward to your future postings. Maybe you should do one (some) on the rinks issue in Fredericton.
Perhaps...
Congratulations to Graham and the Liberals. 29 seats is fine even though more would have been nice. Just means Graham's re-election will be more impressive.
Congratulations to the Liberals on defeating the Conservatives. It is time for a change of government in New Brunswick and obviously the voters knew that. It’s also good that the Liberals received what I would describe as a “humbling majority”. I hope that Graham and his handlers will read the message inherent in the vote result – you may have a majority, but it is a “slight” majority and that indicates the public’s faith in you. This is NOT a Frank McKenna, circa 1987 result.
Graham has to remember that his party nearly toppled Lord's Tories in 2003 when a wave of voter anger over auto insurance costs swept the province. He said at that time that he would act decisively on the auto insurance issue. Well, now is his chance. A four cent cut in the gasoline tax is fine, but the tax is predicated on how much the refineries are charging for the gas.
Bernard Lord received the message he should have received. In public, he has been an arrogant man displaying little care or concern for the need of the average New Brunswicker. It’s clear that we had had enough of that. We don’t always want a populist, but we want someone to at least “appear” that he cares about us.
Allison Brewer should pack her bags and fade quietly into the night. Her loss of four percent of the provincial popular vote is an important signal that she simply doesn’t have the “right stuff”. The NDP in New Brunswick has been ruled for too long by “insiders” who care little for the average person. It’s time for the NDP to clean house, get rid of all those who “know” how to do it and elect someone as leader who can revitalize the party. His name is Dennis Atchison and he was the NDP candidate in Fredericton-Silverwood. It’s time for him to take over the leadership reigns and begin to rebuild the party, without the deadwood that made it so difficult for Charles Fournier to be president of the party. The Moncton “mafia” of the party wouldn’t even give Fournier a key for the offices in Fredericton. Hopefully, they’ll pack their bags too.
New Brunswick is on the edge of a new political landscape. Lord’s loss proves that he’s not national material. He probably will lead for a few months and then announce his resignation to return to the private sector and take some juicy directorships with the insurance corporations that he served so well. He might even join the board of that new hospital in Waterville that undoubtedly helped to get him out of office while keeping Dale Graham in the legislature. One feels sorry for David Alward – a good and decent man who got caught in political pork-barreling of the lowest kind.
What’s that old quote? “The people have spoken.”
Sorry I just got over here this morning. The CBC actually declared an NDP win last night at one point? You're kidding right. This is why I watch CTV on election night. As blogger Altavistagoogle put it last night at least CTV wasn't reading viewer e-mails all night and were accurate.
Agreed that CTV did a far better job than the publicly funded CBC. If you're looking for specific riding results today, CTV has a good website: http://www.ctv.ca/generic/WebSpecials/new_brunswick_elxn2006/main_frameset.html
Suprise suprise, Spinks has more to say about the CBC than the election. Nothing like making an election a soapbox podium.
I have to laugh at people's idea of democracy-telling parties who they 'have' to elect as leader and what they 'have' to do. Wow, welcome to Iran.
Just to be fair, the NDP was nowhere near prepared for the election. Even the two main parties had trouble finding candidates and in many ridings ran young people with no experience in .....anything (and I've heard in many cases didn't even want to run-now that at least is worthy of respect)!
The NDP has zero funds of course, and gets little coverage from the media. Does anybody even know what their platform is? Do they even have one? It's no suprise they dropped support, that doesn't mean its a drop for the party necessarily, as its an across the board drop, it very easily can be seen as people just looking at the situation realistically-last election was extremely close (thats fact, not polls), and this one was said to be close as well, which meant there is far more onus on voting for one of the two main parties.
Combine all those factors together, and keeping in mind that Lord was promising a vote in 2007, and you can see that as far as the NDP goes, people are reading far too much into it-mostly because they simply don't like the NDP.
Like every party no doubt there will be a leadership vote. As is said about the general vote, if you aren't going to participate, then shut the *&^% up about it. You can join the NDP and vote for the new leader and help define all those 'priorities'. If you are going to sit on the outside and criticize and not vote, then see the expletives above.
The people in the party will decide what the issues are and how to approach them, so join them, or shut up about it. If I didn't vote provincially and started griping here I know exactly what the tone would sound like. So what's good for the goose...
But it's pretty funny to see comments like 'new brunswickers have spoken'. Uh, news for you people, the 'people' elected the losing party, NOT the liberals. Yes it was razor thin, but thats the reality.
People can dance around reality all they want. It is a long since illigitimate SYSTEM that elected Graham. And you can tell what a stranglehold this archaic system, long since abandoned by every other country but ours (hell, even Iraq is better represented-even countries that were communist fifteen years ago are now better represented), has on politicians that even Lord doesn't mention it.
The media certainly will, and certain bloggers certainly will, and that part is true. What is also true is that NBers are so deeply divided that I suspect we can make a leap of faith and realize that far more people flipped coins than we'd like to think.
Glad it is over and Lord dynasty is over. It is hoped that New Brunswick will be again a better place to live.
As far as Bernard Lord is concerned, good riddance. I hope he finds himself another career, as politics is not his cup of tea. The man is allergic to public and public has spoken. I feel good about the outcome.
NBpolitico yours was one of the best blog. Enjoyed it. My predictions were 32 Libs or more but a majority is a majority. It looks good.
Some New Brunswickers are quite adept at missing the obvious. Lord won his seat by a huge margin, he certainly has no reason to 'quit politics'.
Also, more New Brunswickers voted for him than voted for Liberals, and more voted for him than voted for him last time..so how exactly is that bad news? Again, its just a *&^%ed up electoral system that ruled the day in the liberals favour.
Keep in mind that only 13% fewer people voted for Lord than voted for McKenna in 87 which gave the liberals every seat in the house. That's how messed up the system is. That's not all Lord's fault, he was going to have a referendum, let's see how much respect Shawn Graham gives to New Brunswickers opinions.
Spinks - I switched back and forth between CBC and CTV but liked CBC much better. They never verbally called anything for the NDP, but their graphic that switched from riding-to-riding showed the NDP ahead in Caraquet and then at one point with the checkmark declaring elected.
However, this was never reflected by the anchors nor by the graph on the bottom of the screen which never even showed them leading.
A closer look revealed something was wrong with their data as the CBC website and CTV had the same numbers but the results for the Libs and NDP inverted.
Hey guys! A loser is a loser. He is out of Premier's office and rightly so. His ego is too big to stay as an opposition leader and knives will be out in time. Bye bye Bernie.
This man has hurt too many people in this province and his ignorance is incredible. I hope he eats a large piece of humble pie and so do his supporters.
Again, he's got nothing to be humble for. His number of votes went up, he had more votes than the liberals, and has only 13% less than the liberals when they held every seat in 87.
Because you don't like him is besides the point. Obviously lots of people do, in fact more than like Shawn Graham-at least enough to vote for him. In fact, he'd be Premier today if not for closing one hospital.
Hopefully the tories will spend each day hammering the liberals on proportional representation to see how much Graham respects the will of the people.
However, when you hold office with fewer votes than your opponent, then I won't be surprised that Graham only pays lip service to the votes of the people.
Bernard Lord's lips must be sore as he has been lipping them for last 7 years doing lip service. He is out of Premier's office. Face it. Ooouch! must hurt. This man was out of control, had no respect for the public and plain ignorant. Have fun in political wilderness now.
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