Up-and-comers: Lisa Merrithew

Lisa Merrtihew is a largely unknown quantity to New Brunswickers. Those that do know her will primarily know her as either Gerry Merrithew's daughter or Peter MacKay's (ex)girlfriend.

A Google search revealed only 856 results, of the top 10, five were about her relationship with Peter MacKay, three referred to her recent appointment and role as a Senior VP with PR giant Fleishman-Hillard, one was an earlier post I wrote about her potential as a leadership candidate and one was her Wikipedia article.

Though 856 results may seem low, her likely leadership opponents do about the same, though with more relevant hits (I doubt the facination with her relationship with Peter MacKay is something she would want to consume 50% of the ink used to write about her).

Here are the results of some of her possible competition: Trevor Holder (865), Margaret-Ann Blaney (795), Brad Green (761), Jody Carr (654), Madeliene Dubé (280).

However, many Tories I have spoken too are blown away with excitement when they hear of her as a possible leadership candidate, especially when compared to the other candidates.

Of those I mention above, she is the only one who is fluently bilingual. She also has a background in public relations, giving her lots of training to be effective in developing a message that ressonates with people.

In early 2006, she joined Bernard Lord's office to take over the messaging and strategy of his premiership. Though she didn't manage to prevent Lord from losing, she allowed him to carry the day in the messaging surrounding the procedural battle in the legislature, despite the fact that procedural experts like Robert Marleau and C.E.S. Franks will tell you that the Liberals were in the right. At the same time, for the first time in three years, the Tories took the lead in opinion polls and went on to win the popular vote on election day.

This cannot all be attributed to Merrithew, obviously, but there was a marked change in attitude from the premier and his government that coincided with her arrival and led to an improved public standing.

Whether or not she would be a candidate however is no sure thing. In March, she accepted a job in Toronto that I expect pays very, very well. Would an uncertain leadership race that, if successful, would be followed by an uncertain future as party leader attract her?

If she were to win, how would she enter the legislature? The only remaining Saint John area seats are those of Trevor Holder (who I doubt would want to step aside) and Margaret-Ann Blaney. Neither seat would be a sure bet to win and the occupant would have to be willing to step aside permanently as her father's old domain of Saint John East has become a left wing bastion which the Tories have only won once in the past 25 years and then with only 36% of the vote in a three-way race in the huge sweep of 1999. The Tories placed third in their attempt to retain it in 2003.

The Tories better start lobbying hard; as I look at the possibilities she seems to be the only one that could even make the 2010 election a competion, otherwise it would be a Liberal recoronation. Quite a rise from being mostly notable until 2006, and still today according to Google, as MacKay's pre-Belinda belle.

I don't believe it...

After one year since winning the popular vote but losing the election and nine months after the departure of Bernard Lord and after having seen their numbers in polls drop from 48% on election day, to 30% in August and seeing their caucus shrink by 12%... the New Brunswick Tories will be thinking about setting a date for their next leadership convention.

I am glad to see they were spurred into action by my demand that they do so last week.

I found the following a bit disturbing however. Though the provincial executive will have the formal power to set the date, Jeannot Volpe, interim leader of the biting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face party said: "As caucus, we will send a letter to the provincial executive to advise them of what we would like." I am not sure that sounds entirely fair, especially if there are candidates from outside of caucus running. One presumes those who are in caucus -- who have the luxury of being better known, having established relationships with the press and a wider audience of party members and having the ability to campaign fulltime without risk of loss of pay or jobs -- would favour a different date and campaign structure than those out of caucus.

One of those out of caucus who may wish to run will actually be the subject of my next up-and-comer piece.

A new prediction

Notwithstanding my earlier musings, I predict that John McCain will win the Republican nomination. That is pretty bold when one considers that the current market value for McCain is 4.70 compared to 37.40 for Rudy, 24 for Romney and 23 for Thompson. In fact, McCain is barely ahead of Libertarian and anti-war candidate Ron Paul who is sitting at 3.90.

However, it looks as though there is going to be all out warfare between Romney and Guiliani setting them both up for a lot of damage heading into an Iowa caucus which McCain has been working very long and hard in preparation for this season. I suspect a surprise finish of either first or second for McCain in Iowa (depending on how Thompson does) followed by a win or close second in New Hampsire (in competition with Romney). After that McCain wins South Carolina and the rest is history.

Obama for New Hampshire, South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico... YEEEARRRRGH?

While parousing Ben Smith's blog and watching Barack Obama's most recent ad, I was reminded of something I've noticed before: the similarity between Obama's branding, stategy and messaging and that of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

First, it is interesting to note that back in 2003 prospective Senate candidate Barack Obama was an early backer of Dean and the favour was retuned in Obama being one of the first "Dean Dozen" in 2004 where the former Vermont governor directed his supporters to contribute to the campaigns of like minded Democrats around the country.

Second, we see Obama use the line "take our country back", a Howard Dean special, run as a strong outsider, fund his campaign with a large number of individual donations, and his campaign committee is even named the same was ("Obama for America" vs. "Dean for America"; as was his 2004 Senate campaign dubbed "Obama for Illinois").

One wonders if his campaign will face a fate similar to Dean? Clinton has the establishment support, Edwards and Dodd the union support and my guy Biden (with Edwards and Clinton) bests him in endorsements all putting them in better positions to mobilize the troops in Iowa. Will Obama's greener troops similarly have a hard time getting the vote out as Dean's did before him? And will a third or worse showing in Iowa derail him in the states that follow as happened Dean?

Food for thought.

Grits lead Tories 2 to 1

After a slip after the 2007 budget, which raised taxes, the Liberals have returned to the astronomical polling numbers they enjoyed shortly after taking office. The Liberals currently stand at 60% in the quarterly CRA poll, compared to 30% for the Tories.

The Telegraph-Journal has extensive reporting on the poll, which has not yet been posted on CRA's website.

The trend looks pretty good for the Grits... Maybe the Tories should think about picking a leader sometime soon?

UPDATE: The Gleaner article has more detail.

Up-and-comers

As the dog days of summer wind up but before the political chitter chatter in New Brunswick picks up volume, I thought I would try to do something interesting. The talk of Dennis Atchison running for leader of the NDP reminded me of one up-and-comer in particular.

Last year, I first wrote about Rick Miles, the 37-year-old MLA from Fredericton-Silverwood and chair of the Government Caucus, in describing him as an "early 20s student" who had no chance against NDP star Atchison and Tory health minister Brad Green. Whoops. I mean it was close wasn't it? You say he won by 7 points and in 24 of 32 polls and tied in a 25th? Ahem.

So I have already made an earlier mea culpa on this one. I am able to restore a bit of my ego by noting that everyone else was of pretty much the same view. As I have before, I tip my hat to Mr. Miles for a tremendous victory.

Since then he re-surprised me in winning the chairmanship of the Liberal Government Caucus; an equally impressive feat for a first-time MLA. I understand he played a significant role in the defection of Mr. & Mrs. Stiles from the PCs and he has been one of the strongest backbench defenders of the government on the floor of the legislature.

If he didn't have the misfortune of sharing a city with T. J. Burke, Greg Byrne and Kelly Lamrock, I would say he was a sure bet to be in the cabinet whenever Mr. Graham decides to do a shuffle. With that sort of competition, it seems unlikely, but Mr. Miles has surprised us before. Keep an eye on this guy.

This will be the first in a series of profiles on rising stars inside and outside of the legislture in New Brunswick politics. Drop me a line or leave a comment if you would like to suggest someone.

No, I am not dead

Thanks to those readers who've dropped me a few emails (they like me, they really like me!). I am still alive and kicking, still reading blogs and commenting occassionally. I spent a good part of the latter half of August on holiday and really haven't seen anything too exciting to post about that isn't covered elsewhere.

A few random thoughts:

Ontario I'm not too keen on Dalton McGuinty or the proportional representation proposal being voted on there.

United States I've really been enjoying reading Ben Smith's Democratic blog and Jonathan Martin's Republican blog on the the presidential election at politico.com. If you are a nerd, have lots of free time and are interested in Amercian politics, check them out. They both post at least a half dozen times a day, often much more, on the happenings. The presidential election is heating up as people supposedly start paying attention after Labour Day. Fred Thompson is set to announce officially on Leno tomorrow night. My choice, Joe Biden, has been running ads in Iowa and I am curious to see if that will allow him to at least get in to the double digits.

Spinks Congrats on finishing the 101 countdown and kudos to you for appending the more optimistic 10 who aren't.

New Brusnwick I say again HELLO OPPOSITION PARTIES??? The NDP convention is only 5 weeks away and I don't think there are any declared candidates; please correct me if I am wrong. The election was over 11 months ago, there seems to be no hint of a date for a Tory leadership race either, though they are holding an AGM the weekend after the NDP is supposedly voting in a leader.

UPDATE: According to that wonderful resource that is Wikipedia; I now learn that their are two candidates for the NDP leadership: Dennis Atchison and Roger Duguay, both fairly strong candidates. Should be interesting.

Cabinet update(s)

The cover of some editions of the Globe & Mail have big above-the-fold pictures of Maxime Bernier, Peter MacKay and Jim Prentice. The paper reports that Bernier will go to foreign affiars, MacKay to defence and Prentice to industry. Which would make me 0 for 3.

Watch here for updates and the names break and the shuffle occurs.

UPDATE #1

From the PMO press office:

Public events for Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Tuesday, August 14th are:

3:45 p.m. – Prime Minister Harper will attend a swearing-in ceremony of new Members of the Ministerial team.

Rideau Hall
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, ON

5:30 p.m. – Prime Minister Harper will deliver a brief statement concerning his new Ministry.

Prime Minister’s Residence
24 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, ON

So the shuffle will begin at 4:45 Atlantic, so shortly after you start your supper you'll know the answers ;)

UPDATE #2

A new record! Almost every single prediction was wrong!!!! Hooray for me. Skelton did infact leave the cabinet. All of my ministerial guesses were wrong. The only area where I was right was that no one who moved in January was re-moved.

In case you've not seen it elsewhere...

O'Connor moved out of Defence to Revenue while Revenue minister Carol Skelton moved out of the cabinet.

MacKay moved to take Defence, while Bernier took his job at Foreign Affairs and Prentice took Industry, Strahl took Indian Affairs, Ritz (a junior minister) took Agricutlure and Diane Ablonczy finally, sort of, joined cabinet as junior minister for small business and tourism (Ritz's old job).

Finally two ladies did the old switcharoo with Oda going to International Cooperation and Verner to Heritage.

Cabinet pontification

So as the press reported last week, Conservative sources (the press has Conservative sources these days?) say that when a cabinet shuffle comes, it will be no one in, no one out. That is my instinct as well, notwithstanding Stephen Taylor's musing that Carol Skelton will leave the cabinet. Though she is not reoffering, Tories now seem to be operating on a plan for an election more than two years from now (in October 2009) and there is no reason to remove someone who isn't reoffering. Moreover, most suspect David Emerson will not be running either.

My sources tell me the shuffle will be either Monday (the 13th) or Tuesday (the 14th). It is also my expectation that none of the new Secretaries of State will be elevated to full ministers.

Because I just can't resist, and because it is just a game of musical chairs and theoretically easier to predict, here are my predictions and my thoughts behind them.

Those who were shuffled already this January are the least likely to be shuffled again, they are:

Rona Ambrose (Intergovernmental Affairs)
John Baird (Environment)
Diane Finley (Immigration)
Rob Nicholson (Justice)
Monte Solberg (Human Resources)
Vic Toews (Treasury Board)
Peter Van Loan (Government House Leader)

Additionally, any movement of David Emerson (International Trade) or Michael Fortier (Public Works) would create unwanted negative press; they'll stay put. Senate Leader Majority LeBreton also has no where to go. I also expect Chuck Strahl (Agriculture) and low key Quebeckers Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Labour) and Josee Verner (International Cooperation) will remain unmoved. All of the remaining 13 ministers will move.

A lot of talk focusses on National Defence. Gordon O'Connor has become this shuffle's Rona Ambrose. It is all about moving him out. If no one leaves the cabinet, the only other portfolio one could imagine O'Connor in is Veterans' Affairs. The general consensus is also that a Francophone will need to be Defence Minister while the vandoos are in Afghanistan, some have suggested this would be Maxime Bernier, I disagree. First, the minister will also need good command of English as the war is a major issue in English Canada as well, Bernier doesn't have that. Moreover, the Prime Minister seems to go through favourite Quebeckers like he does foster kittens; even before he won office it went from Verner to Cannon and then during the campaign shifted to Fortier and now in office Bernier has become the favourite. Harper will not want to put Bernier in a potentially suicidal portfolio, so Lawrence Cannon, whose grandfather was coincidentally defence minister in Mackenzie King's war time cabinet, will get National Defence.

Though the furor has died down somewhat, Peter MacKay has been a disappointment in foreign affairs, he will become Minister of Public Safety. Taking over for him will be cabinet rock star and new Minister of Foreign Affairs Jim Flaherty, whose only possible replacement in finance is Maxime Bernier. This makes room for Stockwell Day, who has been a tremendous success in public safety, to take over the important job of industry minister.

Jim Prentice, who has been an important player behind the scenes (he chairs both the operations committee of cabinet and the special cabinet committee on energy and the environment), will continue his job as de facto COO of the government in addition to taking the complex and higher profile job of health minister. Outgoing health minister Tony Clement, will take the job of transport minister, a post he held in Ontario and one that would be freed up by the move of Cannon to defence.

Taking over Prentice's job in Indian Affairs would be Carol Skelton, a relative moderate and pragmatist who is required on such a touchy file. Her low profile job of revenue minister will be assumed by Bev Oda who has been a disaster in her current job. Loyola Hearn, the soft spoken but hard working Newfoundlander, will become heritage minister, a position for which he was once PC critic. Gary Lunn gets Hearn's old job of fisheries minister, while this finally leaves New Brunswick's own Greg Thompson, who has been a great steward of the veterans file, with Natural Resources - which co-owns the climate change file with environment - and possibly ACOA which Peter MacKay may or may not give up.

Thems my thoughts for what they're worth. I will standby to be wrong again early next week, or even more wrong if that isn't when the shuffle happens!

UPDATE: If this story from Monday's Globe & Mail is correct, it looks like my predictions won't even be close:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled Tuesday to unveil a smaller cabinet that he hopes to lead into the next election.

A government official, speaking anonymously, said there will be few, if any, fresh faces in the lineup, with Mr. Harper deciding instead to both promote junior ministers and to expand responsibilities for others to include portfolios that departing ministers will leave open.

“It's highly unlikely that backbenchers will enter cabinet, and it's likely that certain members of the current ministry will not be in this ministry,” the government official said.

Of interest

So here is the situation.

The opposition has elected a leader who lacks charisma, who was not a frontrunner in the leadership campaign, and who emerged as the consensus candidate not with enthusiasm but because the party simply could not stand the other candidates.

He has shown to be less than a natural fit for the role of leader and, in fact, the government party has taken to running ads saying "a leader must be a leader" and other messages telling Canadians that the opposition "leader" just isn't up to the job as prime minister.

Though the government and opposition parties stand relatively close in opinion polls, with the edge usually to the government, the prime minister enjoys leadership numbers far in excess to that of the opposition leader thus giving the government an extra edge. Indeed, in some polls the leader of the NDP fairs better than the opposition leader in terms of leadership quality numbers.

Worst yet? The opposition caucus is bleeding members with a combination of long-time MPs with great experience and newcomers thought to be the future of the party resigning, forcing by-elections from coast to coast.

Jeez, those Tory delegates must really be regretting electing Joe Clark back in '76, he's got no hope to win the '79 election. They should have picked Wagner or Mulroney or even Macdonald...

h/t Tory blogger Le Politico who gave me the idea when he commented that this many opposition MPs resigning "at mid-term is unprecedented". In fact, we are looking at 5 Liberals (out of 102) stepping down today, while in Joe Clark's day it was 7 (out of 95).

Sources: Wikipedia page on the 1979 election, Wikipedia page on the 1976 Tory leadership and the Parliament of Canada page on 1977 and 1978 by-elections.

Best politico vid ever

Now I am far, far away from being a supporter of Sam Brownback for the U.S. presidency but I have to post this video which is the best amatuer political vid I have seen to date.



h/t Jonathan Martin / The Politico

Nuclear part deux

After a good debate on the announcement over the past few days, there are two very good and informative news articles in the Telegraph-Journal today, I will quote from them...

When it came online in 1983 Lepreau's Candu 6 reactor was three years behind schedule and, at $1.4 billion, nearly $700 million over budget. This deal shields New Brunswick taxpayers from cost overruns.

Patrick Lamarre, president of SNC-Lavalin Nuclear, said the private companies will generate project financing by tapping different companies and pension funds, should the project proceed. The New Brunswick government will have the ability to opt into as much risk as it believes it and NB Power can sustain.

"If the study is favourable, the funding for the project will be organized by Team Candu and by private investors and not by New Brunswick taxpayers," Lamarre said.

and

Duane Bratt is a policy studies professor at Mount Royal College in Calgary with expertise in the Canadian nuclear industry. He doesn't see a downside for the province, considering the private sector's lead role. Alberta has been examining a similar financial arrangement.

"This should address many of the critics that have been out there about cost overruns and delays, that nuclear power is uneconomic," Bratt said. "This is very significant. This is the most significant aspect of this deal."

...

Mount Royal's nuclear expert said getting out early is giving New Brunswick the potential for a serious economic jolt.

"They are ahead of everybody," Bratt said. "In the case of Alberta they haven't even made their site selection yet." Keir called Wednesday's announcement a "no-brainer." The difficult decisions will come after examining the business case.

and

Also up for negotiation is the involvement of NB Power. David Hay, NB Power's president and chief executive officer, said it makes sense for his nuclear division to be the operator. But Keir said if NB Power balks at signing on, there is a possibility Atomic Energy and its partners could solicit an outside operator.

and

Atomic Energy would not disclose how much a new generation reactor would cost. Outside estimates place the cost at more than $3 billion. Graham floated a $5-billion total value of such a project, pointing out the second reactor would create 4,000 jobs in trades, engineering and information technology over six years, 500 permanent jobs at the reactor, and roughly 300 jobs at the two centres of excellence.

"It is time to bring our New Brunswickers back," Graham said at the news conference.

and

the $2.5-million feasibility study must demonstrate a solid business case. In the coming months, Atomic Energy will be pushing interested U.S.-based utilities to sign statements of intent, the first step toward buying power generated from a future reactor.

In the comments on the earlier thread, the main concerns seemed to be the viability of markets and risk for the province. According to this, there is no committment now. If we do decide to go ahead we will have a cutting edge centre of excellence in New Brunswick, the builders will take on as much risk as we want (including the potential to take all of it on and we would not get cash to pay down debt but would get 800 good, permanent jobs) and so on and so on.

Now, can't we all just get along? Agree this is worth a look and celebrate a bit of innovative thinking and forward moving direction coming from our government for the first time in a long time?

Excuse me, Mr. Kettle? There is a pot calling for you...

My least favourite MP and Conservative attack dog Pierre Poilievre is on the front page of The Hill Times this week, in reference to the number of Liberal MPs resigning saying as follows:

• they are "breaking their word" to their constituents;
  
• "Stéphane Dion is not a leader, so they're resigning because they don't want to be part of a failed effort";
  
• they "are responsible for millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded byelections"; and
  
• if they were going to resign early, "why did these Liberals run to be elected to Parliament in the first place?".

Several others are quoted about how Poilievre is right and how horrible these Liberals are.

To be honest, I am not a big fan of people retiring early without a very good reason. You are elected to serve a term and if people put your trust in you, you should respect that. However, there is an old saying about throwing stones when you live in a glass house.

I would ask Mr. Poilievre, have these individuals also betrayed their constituents for resigning in the middle of their terms:

• Current Conservative campaign chair and former interim leader of the Canadian Alliance John Reynolds who resigned in 1977 because he could not support Joe Clark as leader.


• Reform Party founder Preston Manning who resigned in 2002 as he found it uncomfortable to sit in a caucus which he did not lead.


• Or perhaps our current prime minister, Stephen Harper, who resigned in 1997 to take up a job with the National Citizens Coalition and due to disagreements with his leader.

So Pierre, are Messrs. Reynolds (in charge of getting you re-elected), Manning (the founder of the better part of today's conservative movement and one time mentor to your current leader) and Harper (your current leader) just as bad as these Liberals? If not, please explain how that is exactly.

Going nuclear

I was very pleased to see this report in the papers today. I have always been a proponent of nuclear power and despite what some naysayers have said, I think the province can make a lot of cash off of the U.S. energy demand which cannot be met with either pollution or nuclear plants both of which are unacceptable to the sensibilities of those who will consume the power. Thus we build the plant, they get power and everybody wins.

The report indicates that New Brunswick still has a chance to be the first one to build the next generation of CANDU, something I thought we had lost when Lord was dithering on the subject over the last years. I suspect that AECL will be eager to give us a bit of a discount if we are the pilot.

UPDATE: This has now been officially announced.

And the winner is...

In a surprising first ballot victory, out of 7 contenders, Louis Robichaud managed to win 51% of the vote and capture the title of New Brunswick's Best Premier. He will now advance to face 9 others in Calgary Grit's poll for Canada's Best Premier.

The voting was light at first but took off and in the end we had 133 votes cast; considerably less than the 301 in the preliminary qualifying round but it was for a shorter voting period due to my anticipation that we would have to go multiple rounds.

The race began as a bit of a heat between Robichaud and Frank McKenna but by day two, Robichaud had roared into a commanding lead. Over the course of day two and into today, Bernard Lord made a surprising surge ending up in second place.

The final results were:

1. Robichaud 51% (68 votes)
2. Lord 21% (28 votes)
3. McKenna 15% (20 votes)
4. Hatfield 11% (14 votes)
5. Flemming 2% (2 votes)
6. Tilley 1% (1 vote)
7. Fisher 0% (nil)

Best Premier: The Vote that Counts or the Final Seven

Welcome to the round that counts that might count, we will be voting on the final seven nominees to be New Brunswick's Greatest Premier. In this round will be the top six finishers from the qualifying round as well as Bernard Lord, our most recent premier, who I have no love for and who I want to include here to insure that every feels this has been a fair contest.

The vote is by preferential ballot and you can vote by clicking here. The polls will close on Friday.

Unfortunately, I have had to cancel the original preferential voting poll. The Democratic Choice system I was using allowed anyone to vote unlimited times and people were clearly stuffing ballot boxes in favour of Robichaud and Hatfield (each received over 100 votes, with preferences ranked exactly the same, in a matter of minutes). It is extraordinarily easy to stack the ballots on their system as you can simply hit back on your browser and re-vote the same preferences. I cannot find another preferential vote system online, so I will do manual runoff voting. Please see the following poll, cast your vote for your favourite candidate. Voting will close on Thursday at noon (after 48 hours from this moment). If no candidate has 50%, the bottom candidate and all those with less than 10% will be dropped and there will be another round.






I present a summary of each nominee in alphabetical order:

Charles Fisher
Party: Reformer, Smasher, Liberal
Term: 1854-56, 1857-61
Other politics: MLA (1837-1856; 1857-1865; 1865-1867); Attorney General (1866-1867); MP (1867-68); New Brunswick Supreme Court (1868-1880)
Round 1 result: 4% (6th place)
Accomplishments: Established responsible government; led Confederation forces in the legislature against the Anti-Confederation government of 1865-1866.
Failures/Negatives: Lost control of his caucus and was forced out of office as a result; allowed other figures in his cabinet to overshadow and overrule him on occassion
Full bio: mine - Wikipedia - NB Legislative Library (PDF)

The Honourable Hugh John Flemming, P.C.
Party: Conservative, Progressive Conservative
Term: 1952-60
Other politics: Carelton County council (1921-35); Conservative candidate for MP (1935); MLA (1944-60); federal cabinet minister (1960-63) MP (1960-72)
Round 1 result: 7% (5th place)
Accomplishments: Regional cooperation, balanced budgets and equalization
Failures/Negatives: Introduction of controversial hospital tax
Full bio: mine - Wikipedia - NB Legislative Library (PDF)

The Honourable Richard Hatfield, P.C.
Party: Progressive Conservative
Term: 1970-87
Other politics: MLA (1961-1987)
Round 1 result: 14% (third place)
Accomplishments: Official Bilingualism, improved relations between English and French; made PC Party competitive in Francophone New Brunswick
Failures/Negatives: Some would argue Official Bilingualism; setting the stage for the division of the conservative movement; last term scandals; massive deficits
Full bio: mine - Wikipedia - NB Legislative Library (PDF)

Bernard Lord
Party: Progressive Conservative
Term: 1999-2006
Other politics: Unsuccessful candidate for city council (1995); unsuccessful candidate for MLA (1995); unsuccessful candidate for PC nomination in federal riding (1997); MLA (1998-2007)
Round 1 result: n/a
Accomplishments: Delivered on 19/20 promises in first 100 days of office; made province more competitive by lowering business taxes
Failures/Negatives: Implemented a ill thoughtout deal to remove tolls from the highway that cost New Brunswickers longer in the long run; claimed budgets were balanced that the auditor general later said were not; closed hospitals for political reasons rather than on policy considerations; dithered on decision making
Full bio: mine - Wikipedia - NB Legislative Library (PDF)

The Honourable Frank McKenna, P.C.
Party: Liberal
Term: 1987-97
Other politics: MLA (1982-1997); Canadian Ambassador to the United States (2005-2006)
Round 1 result: 20% (2nd place)
Accomplishments: Renewed confidence among citizens; modernization of highways and telecommunications; job creation; return to fiscal restraint
Failures/Negatives: Social system cutbacks
Full bio: mine - Wikipedia - NB Legislative Library (PDF)

The Honourable Louis J. Robichaud, P.C.
Party: Liberal
Term: 1960-70
Other politics: MLA (1952-71); chair of the International Joint Commission (1971-73); Senator (1973-2000)
Round 1 result: 26% (first place)
Accomplishments: Equal opportunity; official bilingualism; job creation
Failures/Negatives: Some would argue official bilingualism; divisiveness with large business
Full bio: mine - Wikipedia - NB Legislative Library (PDF)

The Honourable Sir Samuel Tilley, P.C.
Party: Reformer, Smasher, Liberal, Liberal-Conservative
Term: 1861-65
Other politics: MLA (1850-51; 1854-56; 1856-1865; 1866-67); provincial cabinet minister (1854-56; 1857-65; 1866-67); MP and federal cabinet minister (1867-73; 1878-85); Lieutenant-Governor (1873-78; 1885-93)
Round 1 result: 10% (4th place)
Accomplishments: Intercolonial railway; groundwork for confederation
Failures/Negatives: Came to power in a bloodless coup out of greed and ambition; abandoned principles (prohibition) for political expediency; failed to convince New Brunswickers to go along with confederation in 1865 election, giving anti-confederates a huge majority
Full bio: mine - Wikipedia - NB Legislative Library (PDF)

For your convenience, here is the poll again so you do not have to be bothered to scroll up. Happy voting and thanks for taking part in this exercise :)

Irony

Maybe it is a bit juvenile for me to think so, but I found a few paragaphs of this article hillarious:

Giuliani has been criticized by conservatives for his support of abortion rights and gay rights. But he has taken little heat from top rivals McCain and Romney and still leads national polls among Republicans.

With the first primary votes still six months away, and 16 months to go before the November 2008 general election, Republican consultant Joe Gaylord said this was not the time to roll out the heavy ammunition on any opponent.

"At some point somebody is going to go after Giuliani, it's just a matter of when," Gaylord said. "But now we're so far away from anyone voting no one would remember what any of them said anyway."

Giuliani adviser Jim Dyke said the former New York mayor would get his turn in the bullseye when the early contests approached.

"There will come a time when the other campaigns become more aggressive because they'll decide that he can win, and they have to distort his story to prevent that," Dyke said.

Doesn't anyone else see the irony in finding a guy named Gaylord and a guy named Dyke to comment on Rudy Giuliani's support of gay rights?

Best Premier: Qualifying round results

After an exciting few days of ups and downs, polls have closed and we have the results of the qualifying round. It was a fairly dynamic thing to watch, almost like an election night.

As polls opened, there was virtual three-way tie for first place in the high teens between the three men that led the province from 1960 to 1997. Hatfield was steadily in third at 17% while Robichaud and McKenna traded for the lead and tied occassionally with 18-19%. At the same time, a surprise candidate, John B. McNair, who barely missed the cut to be in my top 8, held a distant fourth place.

After the first day, Robichaud opened up a huge lead, at one point hitting 33%, mostly at Hatfield's expense and Hugh John Flemming made a huge comeback pulling into and holding fourth for much of the rest of the vote. McNair began a steady decline that ended with him being looped in with the "also rans" tied with three others for seventh place at 3%.

I am shocked that the only candidate to get no votes is none other than John Hamilton Gray, the man who led the "Rummy Party" to power and repealed the Prohibition Bill before it was able to take effect. His crushing defeat will hurt New Brunswick's reputation as a province that favours large consumption of booze!

I am also suprised to see A. G. Blair, the founder of the Liberal Party and our second longest serving premier stuck at 1% and tied with 8 others for 11th (second to last) place.

So, as per the rules, the top six move on, they are the ones in bold in the results list below. I am also going to add in my archnemesis Bernard Lord in order to assure people that I am not biased and am not excluding him for unfair reasons.

The poll will be done by preferential ballot and will open Sunday or Monday and close probably by Thursday. Anyone who wishes to do up a post or site in favour or against one of the candidate's please let me know (in the comments or by email to nbpolitico@gmail.com) and as long as it is clean and honest, I will give you a link (first come first serve).

So our candidates are Bernard Lord and the top six that follow.

Results (301 votes cast)

1. Robichaud 26%
2. McKenna 20%
3. Hatfield 14%
4. Tilley 10%
5. H. J. Flemming 7%
6. Fisher 4%
7. Emmerson 3%
7. Baxter 3%
7. Dysart 3%
7. McNair 3%
11. Smith 1%
11. Mitchell 1%
11. King 1%
11. Fraser 1%
11. Blair 1%
11. Tweedie 1%
11. Hazen 1%
11. J. K. Flemming 1%
11. Foster 1%
20. Gray 0%

Off to the races

In the voting down below, we are one vote shy of 100 after barely a day of polling. Good to see the interest!!

There was some complaint that Bernard Lord is not on the list. As I explained, that is largely because of a technical limitation with the poll but also because as incumbents are excluded and he has barely left office I didn't bother to shop around for another polling provider. If sufficient folks comment asking for him to be in, I'll add him as a bye in round 2.

Preliminary polls are now open in New Brunswick (obviously), and also in Ontario. Perhaps anxious to get their polls closed first for a change, the actual vote has begun in British Columbia. Candidates are being nominated in Prince Edward Island. Watch Calgary Grit to see others as they come online.

PLEASE NOTE my qualifying poll will close at 5 p.m. on Friday, July 20. Not long thereafter, we'll move into voting for the real prize.

Best Premier: Qualifying round

PLEASE NOTE, this round of voting has closed, please see the next round here.

Calgary Grit has annointed Politics from a New Brunswick perspective as the host of the New Brunswick round of "The Search for Canada's Best Premier".

Further to the discussion below, I've decided in order to best narrow the field to the five to six candidates CG has requested, I am putting up a poll of all 20 men to have won elections and subsequently served as premier of New Brunswick - since responsible government began in 1854 and through to Frank McKenna. Our two most recent premiers, Bernard Lord and Shawn Graham, have been excluded because a) it is too soon to fairly and even handedly judge their legacies and b) the poll will only allow 20 options...

I wrote up bios of my eight picks and you may feel free to read those. My picks are also denoted by asterisks (*) on the poll. Vote for up to 6, and the top 6 vote getters will be advancing to the real vote. In the event of a tie between sixth and seventh place, both will be dropped and only 5 will advance.

Vote away...






UPDATE: The B.C. contest has started over at Rob's Random Thoughts, check it out.

The first 8...

Ok, after some of the comments, I think that it would be best to include Leonard Tilley, however I have always viewed Charles Fisher as a more important pre-Confederation leader so I've included him too... so I have made a list of who I believe are the eight greatest premiers and written up bios of each of them. Let me know who you think is best in the comments section and if I am missing anyone...

Quick links: Fisher (1854-56, 1856-61); Tilley (1861-65); Emmerson (1897-1900); Baxter (1925-31); Flemming (1952-60); Robichaud (1960-70); Hatfield (1970-87); McKenna (1987-97)



Charles Fisher (Pre-Confederation Conservative)
Premier from 1854-1856 and 1857-1861 (5 years, 4 months)
Father of Responsible Government in New Brunswick

A lawyer, Fisher was first elected to the legislature in 1837 after an unsuccessful attempt in 1834. Always a reformer, he tabled a motion in 1848 calling for responsible government. The motion passed and the Lieutenant Governor called on Fisher to join the Executive Council without portfolio. The government of which he was a member was not truly responsible; though made of members of the legislature, it was made of members who met the Crown's fancy and did not hold the confidence of the House of Assembly. In disgust, his electors threw him out in the 1850 election; making matters worse, he remained a member of the Executive Council but after he failed in his attempt to regain office in an 1851 by-election he resigned.

Re-elected in 1854 as leader of the pro-responsible government "Smasher Party", he won a majority of seats in the legislature. After six months of constant demands, the at-first-reluctant Lieutenant Governor called on Fisher to form a government and New Brunswick has had true responsible government ever since. Fisher's first cabinet was made up of men of various idelogies who all supported responsible government and included future premiers Samuel Leonard Tilley and Albert J. Smith.

The first months of the government were impressive with bills passed to modernize public works and expand suffrage, however the government was defeated in 1856 when it tried to bring in prohibition. The administration that replaced Fisher's had only that one issue that united members of the legislature, however, and quickly lost power and Fisher returned to office in 1857.

His second term saw the creation of the University of New Brunswick in 1860 by expanding and increasing funding to its forerunner, King's College Fredericton, the oldest English university in Canada. He also provided funds for the construction of the Intercolonial Railway. Fisher focussed mainly on big projects and his dual role as Attorney General however and left much of the day-to-day administration of the government to Tilley, who served as Provincial Secretary and de facto Deputy Premier. A power struggle in 1861 led by Smith and Tilley caused Fisher in favour of Tilley.

Fisher became leader of the opposition to Tilley's government for some time but later joined Tilley's caucus over the matter of Confederation. In 1865, Fisher, along with Tilley and many other supporters of Confederation, lost their seats to the Anti-Confederation Party led by their former ally Smith. Fisher was able to return to the legislature in a by-election in late 1865 and became the leader of the Confederation movement in the House. In 1866, he forced the Smith government to call an election on the Confederation question and the Confederates won. A government was formed, nominally headed by the less controversial Peter Mitchell, while Fisher and Tilley took up their old posts of Attorney General and Provincial Secretary respectively.

Fisher was elected to the new Canadian House of Commons in 1867 and delivered the first speech in that new institution in moving the motion in address to the Spreech from the Throne. He was excluded from Sir John A. Macdonald's cabinet in favour of Tilley and was instead appointed a judge of the new New Brunswick Supreme Court making his tenure in federal politics brief.



Samuel Leonard Tilley (Pre-Confederation Liberal-Conservative)
Premier from 1861-1865 (4 years)
New Brunswick's Lead Father of Confederation

A pharmacist, Tilley became active in politics through the temperance movement and later in railway promotion. He was elected to the legislature in 1850 but resigned in 1851 over frustration with the lack of true responsible government. He joined the first responsible government in 1854 as Charles Fisher's provincial secretary, it was his Prohibition Bill that brought down the Fisher government in 1856 and Tilley lost his own seat in the election that followed. Though his political career seemed over, Tilley had a quick return to office in 1857 when the Anti-Probation government fell not being able to maintain confidence on that issue alone. Tilley stopped supporting prohibtion out of pragmatism much to the dismay of the temparance movement he had helped to found. He returned to the cabinet as Provincial Secretary and oversaw much of the day-to-day operations of the government.

In 1861, tired of running the government without the glory, Tilley called a meeting of all of the members of the Executive Council except for Premier Fisher. He collected a letter of resignation from each and took them to the Lieutenant Governor. Rather than see the adminstration fall, the Lieutenant Governor called on Tilley to head the governmnet, his administration was re-elected in an election three months later. He allied with Nova Scotia's Joseph Howe to convince Britain to fund the Intercolonial Railway and oppossed talks of Maritime Confederation at the Charlottetown Conference in 1864. Instead, he joined with the univited representatives of the Canadas to support a union of the whole of British North America. In order to get a broad base of support, Tilley invited Fisher to return to the government as well as several prominent Conservatives and they went off to the Quebec Conference. There he negotiated a sweetheart deal underwhich New Brunswick would receive $3 more per capita from the federal government than every other province. However, in his absense, the anti-confederation voices had campaigned unopposed against the idea and convinced many in the House and the public to oppose Confederation. Rather than see a bill supporting Confederation destroy the government as his Prohibition Bill had years before, he called an election. Tilley and every member of his cabinet lost their seats.

Tilley was re-elected in 1866 and joined the Pro-Confederation cabinet of Peter Mitchell as Provincial Secretary, it was said that Tilley was the true power in the government or at least shared power with Mitchell, but Mitchell was deemed head of government as he was a less controversial figure.

After Confederation was approved, he joined the Macdonald cabinet as Minister of Customs, a position underwhich he negotiated interprovincial tarrifs and reciprocity with the United States, the end results of which were to make him very unpopular in New Brunswick and the Maritimes as a whole. He was appointed Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick in the dying days of the first Macdonald Government to protect him from certain defeat when an election was called. He returned to parliament while the Alexander Mackenzie government lost its bid for re-election and became a senior minister carrying the Finance and Treasury Board portfolios and implemented Macdonald's new National Policy. As minister, he insisted the Canadian Pacific Railway have its terminus travel through Saint John and Halifax rather than through Maine to Bangor as originally proposed.

He retired from the House of Commons under ill health in 1885 and served a second term as Lieutenant Governor.



Henry R. Emmerson (Liberal)
Premier from 1897-1900 (2 years, 10 months)
A Man Ahead of His Times

Emmerson, an accountant and lawyer, was interested in the legal rights of women from an early age. Rather than apprenticing to become a lawyer, the standard route at the time, he earned an L.L.B. at Boston University and while doing so won top prize for his essay entitled "The Legal condition of married women". He joined the New Brunswick bar in 1878 and soon aquired part ownership of one of the leading Liberal papers of the day, the Moncton Transcript. An unsuccessful candidate for the House of Commons in 1887, he was elected to the New Brunswick House of Assembly in an 1888 by-election. He was unsuccessful in his attempt at re-election in the 1890 general election and was appointed to New Brunswick's Upper House, the Legislative Council, in 1891 and severed there until it was abolished in 1892. While in the Council, he sat in the cabinet as minister without portfolio and leader of the government for the upper chamber.

As a freshman member of the legislature, his first speech referred to the lack of suffrage for woman as "a relic of barbaric prejudice" and women's suffrage remained a key issue for him for much of his career. After the abolision of the Legislative Council, he won a seat in the House in the 1892 general election he was made Minister of Public Works rather than Attorney General because his interest in women's suffrage was thought too controversial for the chief legal office of the province. He continued in the Public Works portfolio after Premier A. G. Blair was named to Laurier's federal cabinet in 1896 under James Mitchell.

In late 1897 Mitchell resigned for health reasons and Emmerson succeeded him as premier. He continued as Minister of Public Works and promoted economic development and tourism. In 1899 he brought a bill to the legislature to give women the vote but it was defeated 39-7. In the election that followed, Emmerson was re-elected but a new Tory named Douglas Hazen entered the legislature and united the opposition forces giving the government its first true opposition in over a decade. Emmerson was accused of corruption and resigned in August 1900, though a Royal Commission later proved his innocence.

He was elected to the House of Commons in 1904 and joined Laurier's cabinet as Minister of Railways. He was dismissed in 1907 however when his alcoholism and womanizing became embarassing to the government. He remained an MP for 7 more years, until his death, and donated money to Acadia University to create a library in his father's name.



J.B.M. Baxter (Conservative)
Premier from 1925-1931 (5 years, 7 months)
Champion of Maritime Rights

A journalist and lawyer, Baxter came from humble beginnings, raised by his mother alone from the age of 2 with several sickly siblings, Baxter joined the work force as a labourer at the age of 14. His employer saw great potential in him and paid for him to attend law school at Windsor, Nova Scotia. He was elected to Saint John Common Council in 1892 and ran a successful law practice. In 1910, he was a star candidate for the conversatives in a by-election and in 1913 joined thed cabinet as Attorney General.

Following the defeat of the Conservative government in 1917, Baxter sat in opposition. Much of the rural base of the Conservative Party then split off to form the United Farmers Party. Facing certain defeat and possible loss of official opposition status in the coming election, the Conservatives turned to Baxter as the only willing person to lead. Rather than head into the 1921 election with two opponents, Baxter negotiated a non-compete agreement with the UF, fielding candidates only in urban ridings while the UF would only field candidates in rural ridings. This saved the Tories from destruction and also cost the Liberals several rural seats.

In 1921, Baxter was invited to join the federal cabinet of Arthur Meighen, but the Meighen government was defeated later that year. Baxter became a leading Tory voice in opposition to Mackenzie King's first government and some viewed him as the logical successor to Meighen, however Meighen pledged to stay on to fight another election and Baxter resigned to resume the leadership of the provincial Conservative Party and lead it to victory in the 1925 election taking 37 of 48 seats by turning all of English Protestant New Brunswick against the first Acadian and Catholic premier, Peter Venoit, in a divisive race.

Baxter sold off the Grand Falls hydro-electric dam to private investors in exchange for their promise to use the profits to create pulp and paper mills in the region which continue to be the primary employers in Victoria and Madawaska County to this day. Baxter, who had been an outspoken advocate of Martime Rights in Ottawa, used his position as Premier to convince the federal government to adopt the recommendations of the Duncan Commission which re-routed much of the Central Canadian east coast trade from New England ports to Maritime ones and increased federal transfer payments to the region in a program that would evolve to become equalization.

Re-elected in 1930, he resigned in 1931 to accept Prime Minister Bennett's offer of a seat on the New Brunswick Supreme Court. One of Bennett's last actions as prime minister was to promote Baxter to Chief Justice. Every judgement that Baxter made on the bench survied appeals. His son, J.B.M. Baxter, Jr. served as a senior minister in the cabinet of Richard Hatfield.



Hugh John Flemming (Progressive Conservatve)
Premier from 1952-1960 (7 years, 9 months)
The Father of Equalization

The teenaged son of Premier James Kidd Flemming when the elder Flemming was forced to resign from office in scandal, he gave up plans to become a doctor to work in the family lumber business to save it from failure.

He was elected to Carleton County Council in 1921 at the age of 22, and served there for 14 years until he unsuccessfully sought election to the House of Commons in 1935 in what was a bad year for Conservatives across the country. In 1944, he took a huge pay cut from his family and other business interests and was elected to the New Brunswick legislature. After the 1948 election, when the Tories were crushed and reduced to 5 seats in the 52 seat legislature, Flemming took over as interim leader and was finally confirmed as permanent leader in 1951. In the 1952 election, he ran on a platfrom of "cleaning house" and, after 17 years of Liberal government, the Tories, newly renamed the Progressive Conservative Party at Flemming's direction, won a majority of 36 to 16. Flemming and one other were the only incumbent Tories on the ballot in that election.

Despite undertaking massive projects such as the Beechwood hydro-electric dam, a project that had promised federal funding revoked in the midst of construction, Flemming brought in 8 consequtive balanced budgets through his term in office. As a result of the fiscal instability in the relationship with Ottawa, Flemming convened the first of what would become annual meetings of the Atlantic Premiers in an effort to present a united front to Ottawa, this group, led by Flemming, would convince the Diefenbaker government to bring in the equalization program.

In 1960, in order to keep the budget balanced and to begin a first step towards public health care, Flemming introduced a widely unpopular hospital tax. The Liberals derided this as a user fee and Flemming failed in his bid for a third term.

After only two months back in opposition, Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker called on him to join the federal cabinet and he entered the house through a by-election in Saint John and became Minister of Forestry. He was later promoted to Minister of National Revenue where he began the concept of regional economic development programs which would later evolve into the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion and later still to the economic development agencies for the regions such as ACOA. He was elected to represent Carleton County in 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1968 before retiring at the 1972 election.



Louis J. Robichaud (Liberal)
Premier from 1960-1970 (10 years, 4 months)
The Father of Equal Opportunity

After first studying to become a priest, Robichaud set his mind on becoming Premier of New Brunswick. In fact, on graduating from university he put into his class' time capsule a note signed "Louis J. Robichaud, Premier of New Brunswick". He was elected to the legislature in the 1952 election, that brought his predecessor as premier Hugh John Flemming to power, at the age of 27. By 1957, he rose to the position of opposition finance critic and in a tight race was elected Liberal leader in 1958.

In 1960, his youth (35) compared to Premier Flemming (61) was a major issue that helped him win on a message of change. Once in office, change was indeed quick and massive. Robichaud's term saw the end of temperance inspired liquor laws, the introduction civil service unions, universal free health care, the creation of 3 of New Brunswick's four public universities, a renewed exploration of natural resources, and most notably Equal Opportunity and Official Bilingualism.

In 1963, a Royal Commission appointed by Robichaud recommended turning the governance of the province upside down and Robichaud enthusiastically agreed. Before Equal Opportunity, New Brunswick had one of the most decentralized governments in the country with the cities and counties carrying responsibility for health and education among other areas now associated with the province. The result was dramatically better health and education for those living in rich cities compared to those living in poor rural counties. Robichaud abolished county governments altogether, taking administration of unicorporated areas directly to the provincial capital, the power of cities was reduced and concentrated rural areas were able to incorporate into towns and villages with similar powers to those of the reduced cities.

Acadians, who prodominately lived in the poor rural regions of the province, became equal players in their society for the first time since the Deportation of 1755. In addition to levelling the playing field for rural New Brunswickers with Equal Opporuntity, he directed initiatives to improve services for Francophones in particular with the establishment of l'Université du Moncton and Official Bilingualism.

K.C. Irving was particularly opposed to Robichaud's "thirst for power" in which many business and urban interests viewed Equal Opporunity as a mere power grab. Robichaud called a snap election in 1967 over the program and dared Irving to take the leadership of the Tories and oppose the program, he did not and Robichaud was re-elected though by a narrower margin.

Having accomplished all this, Robichaud looked around for a successor in 1970, finding no one able, he coasted into an early election campaign where he was obviously disinterested and the Tories returned to power narrowly.

Following his defeat the Liberals went through a rapid succession of leaders and were in the political wilderness for 17 years. Robichaud accepted an appointment as chair of the International Joint Commission until being named to the Senate in 1973 where he served until 2000.



Richard Bennett Hatfield (Progressive Conservative)
Premier from 1970-1987 (16 years, 11 months)
New Brunswick's longest serving Premier

The son of a politician and wealthy farmer, Hatfield was named after the Prime Minister of the day, New Brunswick native Richard Bennett when he was born in 1931. His childhood was a life of privilege attending the exclusive private school Rothesay Collegiate before attending Acadia and Dalhouise universities. Studying law at Dalhousie he met a number of notable future politicians including his roommate Alexander Campbell, who would serve as premier of PEI and John Crosbie who would be federal Finance Minister while Hatfield was premier. In 1952, his dying father warned him from entering politics but he did not listen.

After working as senior aide to a federal cabinet minister in Ottawa, he was elected to the legislature in a 1961 by-election to replace outgoing premier Hugh John Flemming and was re-elected six successive times to represent the people of Carelton County. He sought the leadership of the party in 1966 but was defeated by Charlie Van Horne. When Van Horne failed to win a seat in the 1967 election, Hatfield became leader of the opposition but did not formally become leader of the party until 1969.

He won the the 1970 election on a platform of change. Despite this he continued some of the most controversial of Robichaud's policies. He immediately enacted provisions of the Official Languages Act that Robichaud had intended to phase in over time, named every Francophone in his caucus to cabinet and began a long courtship with the Acadian community that made him incredibily popular among them despite his inability to speak French. He required minority language schools for Francophones outside of core French territories, constructed new French schools and took New Brunswick into Le Francophonie.

His interests were not limited to the advancement of Francophones, but also of other then marginalized groups. He created Premier's Councils on Women, Youth and Disabled Persons. He became a leader of national committees promoting good relations between Christians and Jews and Whites and Aboriginals. Hatfield was also a proponent of regional cooperation, first organizing the Council of Maritime Premiers and its successor the Council of Atlantic Premiers as well as the annual summits of Atlantic Premiers and New England Governors.

Hatfield was also a strong proponent of Canadian constitutional reform, as early as the Victoria Conference in 1971, he was one of the strongest voices for the repatriation of the constitution. Despite his party label, he was considered Trudeau's strongest ally in the 1981-82 constitutional talks. It was at Hatfield's insistance that equalization and minority education rights were included in the new constitution. When there was talk that the British Parliament and the Crown might not approve the repatriation agreement, he boldly stated that if the Crown would not consent, Canada should be rid of the Crown. He refused numerous calls for him to enter federal politics, saying that as Premier he could play a stronger role in national politics than he could as a federal minister.

Hatfield's adminstration was not perfect however. Notorious for his focus on the "big picture", many of the day-to-day operations of the province were neglected. Among these were the Bricklin boondoggle which cost the province an impressive $23 million in early 1970s dollars and a constuction kickback scandal that almost cost Hatfield his government in the 1978 election. Perhaps the best example of this was on one occassion when Hatfield named a complete cabinet without a Finance Minister, the mistake was realized minutes before the swearing-in and one of his ministers received a shock, last minute promotion. Hatfield rarely was in the office before 10 a.m. and often left before anyone else, but a textbook bachelor, he often held political functions in the forms of raucous parties at his home well into the night. He also travelled the world on the government plane, sometimes on official business and sometimes not. The Opposition was outraged when they discovered that one year he spent only 168 days in New Brunswick, in response to which he famously quipped "I was elected to govern New Brunswick, not be in New Brunswick."

After winning the largest conservative majority in New Brunswick history in 1982 and after 12 years in office, Hatfield's personal life began to catch up with him. In 1984, RCMP officials found marijuana in his luggage while he toured the province with the Queen in celebration of the province's bicentennial. In 1985, he hosted a late night party attended by a number of university students where many illegal drugs were used. In 1986, Hatfield survived a caucus revolt only thanks to his large majority and, in 1987, he called an election at the last possible minute; doomed to certain defeat, many of his caucus members ran as independents rather than face defeat as Tories. Ironically, this move helped maginify the defeat of the Progressive Conservatives when they lost every seat to Frank McKenna's Liberals.

In the short term, Hatfield's legacy was considered poor. He was blamed for the total collapse of the Tories, the rise of the anti-French conservative Confederation of Regions Party and three successive Liberal super majority governments each of which were bigger than Hatfield's then-record win in 1982. In recent years though, his many accomplishments, particularly on the federal stage have allowed him an improved reputation among Liberals and Tories alike and his is often cited by Liberals along side Robichaud and McKenna as the best premiers of recent years.



Frank McKenna (Liberal)
Premier from 1987-1997 (10 years)
Mr. Jobs

A lawyer, McKenna grew up in his grandparents' home near Sussex, N.B. when the family farm house had become too large to house all of the children. First active in politics in supporting Robert Stanfield's provincial Tories while attending St. F. X. in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, he later became a Liberal working for several summers in Allan J. MacEachen's minister's office in Ottawa. It was MacEachen, on advising McKenna most successful politicians were lawyers, not academics like himself, that convinced the young man to not accept the offer of graduate studies from Queen's University but to instead attend UNB law school. There he became vice-president of both the campus Young Liberals and the local federal riding association. McKenna became involved in every party committee he could and in the divisive 1982 Liberal leadership race, avoided taking sides by securing the position of Chief Returning Officer for the convention.

After moving to Chatham after graduating law school, he was elected to the legislature in 1982, the only non-incumbent Liberal to win a seat in that disasterous campaign. Ray Frenette became the interim leader shortly thereafter and, by 1985, the party finally called a convention to crown Frenette leader unopposed. McKenna, ambitious, had already promised Frenette he would not oppose him but, upon urging of some friends, reversed his decision, with Frenette's blessing just five weeks before the convention. Both men saw it as a chance for McKenna to mature as a politician, not win. McKenna's positive and optomistic campagin overtook Frenette and he won the leadership by a 2-to-1 margin. For the next two and a half years, McKenna toured the province non-stop in election campaign mode and had all of his candidates nominated by the expected election year of 1986 but it would be another 15 months before New Brunswickers finally went to the polls.

On October 13, 1987, McKenna made history by winning every seat in the legislature. He took office with two objectives: halting out of control budget spending and creating jobs. His focus was distracted however by the Meech Lake Accord which he opposed as it marginalized Francophones outside of Quebec, most of whom were New Brunswick Acadians. He eventually succeeded in leading the charge to amend the Accord to bring the numerous newly elected premiers on board and to satisfy New Brunswick's needs but the Accord was not approved and some accused McKenna's early opposition for killing it.

McKenna took New Brunswick from the second worst economy and the second worst average income to the leader in job creation in the mid-1990s, ahead of every other province in job growth. He took New Brunswick's poorly maintained highways and brought them up to national standards in record time, using some controversial measures to raise funds, including a toll highway from Fredericton to Moncton.

Under McKenna, major investments were made in high technology and New Brunswick became the first jurisdiction in North America with province-wide fibre optic wiring and universal access to the internet (by dial up). This, coupled with New Brunswick's bilingual make up, allowed for the creation of many new jobs in high tech related fields including call centres. This job growth was deemed the "McKenna Miracle" at the time, though it was short lived as many of the jobs vanished after McKenna left office. McKenna himself said that he hoped his legacy was less tangible, that his optimistic attitude proved to New Brunswickers and Atlantic Canadians that they could stand on their own feet and did not need handouts and government cheques to get by.

He surprised many when, with 70% approval, kept a long forgotten promise to serve only 10 years and resigned on the 10th anniversary of his historic electoral victory.

Since retirement he has been urged by successive Liberal Prime Ministers to run in the 2000 and 2004 federal elections, served as Canadian Ambassador to the United States, was the prohibitive frontrunner for the Liberal leadership had he run in 2006 and has been very active in national business.

ADDENDUM

The following individual is not in my top eight, or even my top nine, but he is being included in the balloting of the final round so I am including his bio here for linking purposes.



Bernard Lord (Progressive Conservative)
Premier from 1999-2006 (7 years, 4 monhts)
The other Mr. Dithers

A lawyer, Bernard Lord was born in Quebec where his father was working on the railway. His family settled near Moncton when Lord was young and he was raised with perfect English and French owing to his Francophone Acadian mother and Anglophone farther who was a native of Charlotte County. As a youth, Lord joined and was active in the New Democratic Party before eventually settling on the Progressive Conservatives. He was active in politics successfully in university when he served successive terms as president of the Université du Moncton student union. Upon graduating from law school, Lord founded with several of his fellow students the law firm of Leblanc, Boudreau-Desjardins and Lord.

Lord quickly turned his eye to "real" politics. He ran for Dieppe City Council in 1995 and finishes fifth of six candidates in a ward that elected the top two vote getters. Lord received 548 votes (the winners received 1114 and 727 respectively). Later that year he was the PC candidate in Dieppe-Memramcook in the provincial election, he finished second, losing to incumbent Liberal Greg O'Donnell by a margin of 6639 to 2181 (or 22.6%). In 1997, he tried again in the spring seeking the federal PC nomination for the riding of Moncton but he was not successful.

Evidentally not believing in "three strikes, you're out". Lord sought the leadership of the PC Party of New Brunswick in the fall of 1997. Turning 32 in the middle of the campaign, Lord ran on youth and the fact that he was the only bilingual candidate in the race. None of the four candidates in the race were successful politicians (two others had run unsuccessfully for the House of Commons and the third, frontrunner Norm Betts, was the Assistant Dean of Business at UNB). Lord was considered a rising star but not a realistic candidate for leader and it was expected to go to Betts in a cakewalk. Lord gained momentum when Peter Mesheau, a Lord supporter, won a by-election a few weeks before the campaign and increased the PC presence in the legislature from 6 to 7. Finally many argue Lord got the edge he needed when in the week before balloting, the party agreed to open a satelite voting station on the campus of UdeM where Lord was well connected and had served as student union president just five years earlier. In the end Lord edged out Betts on the second ballot. A year later, Lord entered the legislature by narrowly winning a by-election in the former Liberal strong hold of Moncton East.

As the 1999 election campaign began, few gave Lord a chance to win and most polls showed he and the Tories more than 20 points behind. Lord was initially tepidly supportive of the toll highway from Fredericton to Moncton, however at the urging of the local candidate and faced by more protesters than supporters at a rally in Petitcodiac, Lord shocked his own staff by announcing a PC government would scrap the tolls. Although some thought this a major gaffe at first, as it was a costly initiative that would benefit a very small group in the province, it became a message greater than the specific promise. The toll issue became symbolic of a Liberal governmen that, after 12 years in office, had become arrogant and insensitive to New Brunswickers. Lord steadily edged up in the polls and coupled with a weak campaign run by new Liberal premier Camille Thériault, Lord shocked all watchers by winning 44 of 55 seats on election day.

After the toll promise, Lord had morphed his campaign into "100 days of change", under which he promised he would deliver on his top 20 promises in his first 100 days in office. On day 100, he announced he had delivered on 19, but the toll promise was more elusive. Eventually the deal he announced was to guarantee the same money for the road builders (replacing the tolls with shadow tolls) at a greater cost to New Brunswickers (we would now have to pay, indirectly, for every car on the road, including those from out of province, and also paid a massive penalty for changing the deal). I, and many others, argued at the time that a true leader would have broken his promise, apologized for making a promise without knowing the facts, and explained how honouring the province would have done far more damage than breaking it. However, in the 2003 election, Lord was able to portray himself as the rare honest politician because he had kept his word even under difficult circumstances.

Though the first 100 days saw a very active government, including a reorganization of departments. The balance of the 1500 days of the first term were study after study, reaction after reaction, with no plan or direction. When the 2003 election appeared on the horizon, there was no real issue to hold against Bernard Lord but there was a real sense that New Brunswick wasn't moving anymore and was starting to slip behind. In the campaign that followed, Lord expected to cruise to victory, as did the national media who had annointed Lord as the saviour of the conservative movement. Ironically, whenever New Brunswick conservatives were interviewed they were not quite so enthusiastic. In fact, I wish I had kept it, but the hype the national media was giving Lord in 2002-2003 was so eerily similar to that given to Stockwell Day in 2000 (bilingual, electorally successful, budget balancer) that one National Post piece was almost word-for-word with a previous one on Day.

Lord entered the campaign about even with the Liberals in polls, but with a huge edge over Shawn Graham in personal numbers, and the campaign was all Bernard Lord all the time. However, on the campaign trial, Lord, who normally outclassed Graham on the floor of the legislature, was cold with the people while Graham knew how to press the flesh. Graham's ability to connect with voters on the street and a nearly flawless campaign offset Lord. Lord's only strength outside of core conservative country was in Francophone New Brunswick. Lord had a natural edge there as a Francophone running against and Anglophone with uneasy French but was being weakened by the issue of rising auto insurance rates which had risen the most in these areas. Mirroring his 1999 campaign move on tolls, without notification, studies or plans, on the campaign bus, Lord huddles with a few advisors and between campaign stops designed a plan of "no frills" auto insurance as an option for people who could not afford the rates. It was never well explained, but it was enough to save 5 Francophone seats that were on the bubble and keep the government in Lord's hands.

A friend told me in the few days after the vote that they had voted Tory. I was surprised as I knew them not to be a fan of Bernard Lord. They said Lord had kept all of his promises, that was not often seen in politicians and we needed more honest people in office. The fact that shadow tolls had cost provincial coffers hundreds of millions of dollars and counting was irrelevant he said, at least Lord kept his word.

The following years were equally chaotic, many issues continued to be studied to death and shortly after Paul Martin was dubbed Mr. Dithers by The Economist, New Brusnwick journalist pegged the monicker onto Lord. The auditor general revealed that the 2003 budget, despite Lord's claims, had not been balanced and desperate to balance the 2004 budget, he went back on his pledge to never cut health care - he had often said Frank McKenna's greatest fault was health car cuts. Without any planning or studying, Lord launched massive cuts. When a member of his caucus threatened to bolt over cuts in his area, Lord rewrote the plan and moved the cuts elsewhere, proving to everyone who had already assumed the same: the cuts were not based on science or needs, but on politics.

The opposition discovered that Lord had lost New Brunswick $20 billion of savings over 10 years by failing to sign an Orimulsion supply contract for the Coleson Cove generation station. As a result, the Tories suspended the hearings of the Crown Corporations committee and hired a Tory riding president to prepare a committee report, rather than using legislative staff, and exhonerated the government.

In 2006, expecting his government to call, Lord introduced a budget with provided home heating rebates and regulated gas prices, two things he had always decried in the past as a dishonest means of lowering the price of a commodity and unnecessary government regulation respectively. These plans were again made up on the fly as the government did not even introduce the legislation to regulate gas prices until June 30, over three months after it was announced, and only one day before it was to take effect, and had to threaten the Liberals with using 40 year old legislation that was not intended for that purpose to regulate the market if the Liberals would not give consent to pass the bill through all stages in one day.

Throughout Lord's second term, despite having won only a 1-seat majority, Lord refused to cooperate with the opposition. When he had a minority government for a few months in early 2006, he insisted that New Brunswickers had elected him with a majority and that he should be allowed to govern as though he had one. Despite promising a fixed election date of October 2007, when a member of his caucus announced his intention to resign, and therfore another minority government, Lord said he refused to face a minority legislature and called a snap election.

During the campaign, the Liberals ran on a pledge of optimism and self-sufficiency by 2026. Lord laughed it off saying that he wanted to be a pro-golfer when he was a kid, but it wasn't realistic and neither was New Brunswick getting by without a federal handout. The Liberals beat him just barely, losing the popular vote and winning 29 seats to Lord's 26. Within months however, Lord's personal numbers trailed those of Graham's 48-25 and the Liberals enjoyed over 60% in the polls. The next day, Lord announced he would resign.

He has since joined the Montreal offices of law firm McCarthy Tetrault as a consultant.

The best ever New Brunswick Premier

The Calgary Grit is organizing his third annual political history poll after a successful Greatest Prime Minister in 2005 (won by Sir Wilfrid Laurier) and Greatest Prime Minister we never had in 2006 (won by Preston Manning), this year he is doing The Search for Canada's Best Premier.

The contest will begin with mini-provincial competitions and one rep from each province will go forward into round two. Premiers with longer terms of office have an advantage as the longest six will get a bye, while the bottom four will have to duke it out to move on.

CG is farming out these provincial competitions to other blogs and I have volunteered to do New Brunswick. I am not sure whether or not he will take me up on that offer but, in any event, it is a curious thing to figure out. Let's do some leg work now and, if I am selected, we can carry forward and, if not, we can give some ready made feedback to the real host.

The basic ground rules from him were as follows:

For simplicity’s sake, I want to limit the field for the first round to 5 or 6 Premiers per province so if there's a man out there who you're afraid will be left out, speak now or forever hold your peace.

I think the fairest way to go about it would be to pick three Tories and three Grits.

For me the first two Grits are obvious: Frank McKenna and Louis Robichaud. Who gets the other Grit crown is less clear, though it should probably be between Liberal founder A. G. Blair and Henry R. Emmerson (who, while only in office for 3 years, brought forward policies way ahead of his time) or maybe John McNair?

For the Tories, Richard Hatfield, at least in his first 12 years in office, is an obvious choice. The other Tories could be James Kidd Flemming, who was a promising premier before he was driven from office on corruption charges, J.B.M. Baxter who foreshadowed the likes of Danny Williams in standing up for the Maritimes (yes I know, Newfoundland is not a Maritime province), Hugh John Flemming for his fiscal conservatism and modernization of electric power and, God forbid, Bernard Lord who, after 7 years and after over 60% of New Brunswickers polled said he had no accomplishments in office, still win the popular vote in 2006!

Your thoughts in the comments section. Three Liberals and three Tories. Who should they be?

UPDATE: See my top eight - 2 pre-Confederation, 3 Liberals and 3 Conservatives - by clicking here.

For the sake of democracy....

It is no secret that I am a Liberal and I think you can infer from my writings that, though no one is perfect, I think Shawn Graham is doing a pretty good job as Premier of this province. However, no democracy can function well and no government can remain on track without a strong opposition holding their feet to the fire.

Despite having one one of the largest oppositions possible, with an opposition caucus full of people who are only months removed from having been ministers of the crown, drawn from an opposition party that actually won the popular vote 10 months ago I believe we have less effective opposition to government than from 1988-1991 when the Liberals sat in a legislature full of Liberals.

The summer is here and the ever-so-effective "leader" of the opposition previously decreed that a leadership race could begin now. The House adjourned Friday, and the Tories have gone 72 hours too long without starting their well overdue leadership campaign. As I predicted, Volpé has been a complete disaster as leader.

Whether you like the Liberals or not, I think we can all agree they are getting a free ride from the opposition.

And what of the other parties? The once proud NDP, after having its worst showing in over three decades, has been without a leader for longer than the Tories and has not convened a leadership race. History will remind us that Elizabeth Weir became the effective opposition voice she was not so much because she was effective, but because she was the only voice when the Tories were leaderless and had no seats in the late 1980s. The NDP could be making up a lot of the ground they lost last year by being a sensible and strong opposition to the Liberals. Instead, they join the Tories in the leadership vacuum and the opposition is silent.

The Greens announced in the fall with a fair bit of fanfare (well media attention anyway) that they would start a party. With the other two registered parties going nowhere fast, they could have pulled themselves together, recruiting the 10 people spread across 10 ridings the need to register, nominated a respectable person such as David Coons or some professor as their leader and filled in while this vacuum (which will surely, hopefully go away) still exists. In the meantime, their counterparts in PEI made Canadian history by surpassing the NDP and taking third place in the recent election there. Obviously there is some room for the Green Party to make an impact of some kind.

COME ON PEOPLE! For the sake of democracy, please, won't some party or some group somewhere stand up and be an effective alternative voice? Our system needs it.

A very brief history of parliamentary reform in New Brunswick

Bernard Lord came to power with a massive majority of 44-11 in 1999, this majority would grow over the course of his term to 47-8. If anyone ever had a desire to institute reform, that would be the time, however the only changes to the standing rules of the legislature were to make it sit at 10am and 1pm depending on the day instead of beginning the work day at 8:30am.

In 2003, Lord was re-elected with the narrowest possible majority of 28-27. He had a very difficult time respecting this and, in the name of reform, began a series of proposals to completely re-write the rules of the legislature to give more power to the government irrespective of the size of its majority.

Prior to 2003, it had been the custom of the legislature to sit in the evenings until 10pm while the budget was being debated. During the 1999-2003 legislature, it was not uncommon to see budget measures pass with only 20 government members (out of 47!) present in the chamber. In the 2003-2006 legislature, Lord refused many Opposition attempts to have the routine evening sittings because Lord's full caucus - not less than half of it - would have to be present to guarantee the passage of votes.

You see, in 2003 the voters were not satisfied with Lord's performance and they were not yet ready to give the government to Shawn Graham. As a result, they elected the closest thing possible to a tie. Voters are pretty smart. I spend a lot of time watching elections and, despite the odds, voters tend to end up with what their heart's desire. They wanted consensus, not the unbridled will of Bernard Lord.

Rather than see the results that way, however, Lord insisted that a majority of 1 seat was as good as a majority of 20 and governed as such. When the opposition got in his way, he tried to change the rules to get it for him. When he was forced, by public outcry, to step back from the changes he would widen his majority by appointing opposition MLAs (such as Bernard Richard and Elizabeth Weir) to plum government posts and he made offers to others including but not limited to Eric Allaby, T.J. Burke, Stuart Jamieson and Burt Paulin.

Prior to 2003, any attempts to change the rules of the legislature was done by consensus. You see one of the primary purposes for the Standing Rules is to provide continuity and to protect minority groups and individual members. Thus, it is only apporpriate to change the rules by unanimous consent. Obviously, the Opposition would not agree to throw out their guarantees in exchange for the government having full and total control of the agenda. What would be the point of having a legislature if the opposition was silenced?

Each time Lord was frustrated he would try a different tweak to the rules.

Despite the fact that Lord refused to allow the legislature to sit evenings to debate the budget, the fact that we had the largest opposition caucus since 1982 and the fact that the budget was introduced every year through the session on the last possible date, the legislature completed the budgetary process and adjourned by the end of June.

This year, the Graham government came to the floor of the legislature with a relatively narrow majority of 29-25. They made no effort whatsoever to change the rules. They introduced the budget two weeks earlier than had been done under the Lord Government. They allowed the legislature to sit an extra 9 hours per week in the evenings to debate the budget. Notwithstanding this, the legislature has still not passed the budget and we are into July. In response, the government has proposed to implement the rule changes that were written by the Progressive Conservatives last year, but only in the fall when a new session begins so that the rules do not change half way through the game. The Tories have cried bloody murder and the government is accomodating them by allowing hearings to take place over the summer and if there is consensus that the proposed rule changes (written by Opposition House Leader Bev Harrison when he was serving as Government House Leader) are unfair to the opposition, new rules can be drafted and implemented instead.

Doesn't anybody else see the ridiculous hypocricy here? Will no one call the Tories on it?

The Liberals now have a majority of 32-23 and could do whatever they want. Yet they are allowing the Opposition to hold up the debate on the budget for record time, in fact the Tories have now debated the budget for well over twice as long as the Liberals ever did under Lord when the Grits were deemed by the Tories as "obstructionist" for wasting "too much time" on the budget. And the Liberals are also allowing the Opposition an appeal of the rules they themselves proposed 13 months ago.

Now you know why I am a member of the New Brunswick Liberals and long ago threw up my hands and left the New Brunswick Tories in the dust.