Bernard Lord Progressive Conservative
The 2003 New Brunswick general election was held on June 9, 2003, to elect the 55 members of the 55th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly.
Although early polls suggested a landslide victory for the incumbent Progressive Conservatives of Premier Bernard Lord, the dynamics of the race shifted after Shawn Graham, leader of the Liberal Party, made auto insurance rates a key issue of his campaign.
Lord and the Progressive Conservatives were ultimately re-elected, but with their majority government reduced to just one seat, finishing only two seats ahead of Graham's Liberals. The New Democrats held their sole seat in the legislature.
Leading up to the election, New Brunswick had its car insurance rates skyrocket. The Liberal Party of New Brunswick consequently focused its campaign on three points:
On the other hand, the campaign of Premier Bernard Lord and his Progressive Conservative Party faced a number of problems, especially after changing its position on the key issue of auto insurance several times during the 30-day campaign.
The results were very close, and for most of election night as the results came in, the winner was unclear. Shawn Graham was even heard to remark on television as the night was drawing to a close that "Up to 5 minutes ago, I thought I was Premier".[2]
New Democratic Party of New Brunswick leader Elizabeth Weir was the only member of her party to win a seat. The party ran 55 candidates throughout the province.
The newly founded but short-lived New Brunswick Grey Party, a branch of the Grey Party of Canada, also ran 10 candidates, including party leader Jim Webb.
1 The Grey Party did not contest the 1999 election.
Party leaders and cabinet ministers are denoted in bold.