Bernard Lord - Premier

Premier

On June 7, 1999, Lord's PC party overcame an early deficit in the polls to pull out a landslide victory in the provincial general election, winning 44 of 55 seats in the legislature. At just 33 years of age, Lord (on June 21) became one of the youngest Premiers in Canadian history.

Using the successful tactics from the 1994 United States elections of Republican Congressional leader, Newt Gingrich, Lord was elected on his "200 Days of Change" platform, consisting of 20 promises of things he would do within the first 200 days of his mandate if he were elected premier. Although he did accomplish all of them, many opponents of Lord argued with him over the ways he accomplished those goals, and that he spent too much time with those 20 promises while neglecting other important matters to the province.

In 2002, Lord delivered what the media and others hailed as an electrifying speech at the national Progressive Conservative Party of Canada convention in Edmonton, Alberta, which started speculation that he might run for a job in federal politics, specifically, replacing Joe Clark as federal PC leader. A very strong movement of influential conservatives erupted after Edmonton to lobby the Premier into federal politics, everything from a website to a coast to coast organization was being set up to woo the Premier to leave Fredericton and head to Ottawa. A short time later, Lord shot down any notions that that might happen, choosing instead to remain focused on provincial politics and the 2003 New Brunswick election.

That election was not kind to Lord, with the Liberals using the issue of rising car insurance to catch the PC Party off guard. The Party wasn't able to regain its footing until relatively late in the campaign, and barely held on to a majority over the Liberal Party led by Shawn Graham.

Lord was again courted for federal politics in late 2003 when the PC Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance merged into the Conservative Party of Canada.

In the end, Lord opted to stay in New Brunswick due to his young family and the fact that his departure would force his party into a minority government situation.

In 2004, Lord's government came under fire over a variety of unpopular stances, most notably changes to health care. These included closures of beds at hospitals in Miramichi and Dalhousie, and consolidation of four hospitals in the Upper Saint John River Valley into one. The Liberals, under leader Shawn Graham, led in public opinion polls as of the summer of 2004 and maintained that lead; however, Lord remained the most favoured Leader to be Premier of New Brunswick for a time.

On August 10, 2006, Lord announced that on August 19 he would be calling an election for September 18. This election call was in response to the loss of a caucus member, Peter Mesheau, who announced his intention to resign to work in the private sector. The resignation would have caused Lord to slip into a minority government and the subsequent by-election could have flipped the balance of power to the Liberals. Lord decided that instead of a by-election deciding the fate of his government, he would let the people choose. Some observers saw Lord's election call as a bold move considering his popularity numbers had only recently started to surpass the Liberal Leader.

In the head to head campaign that followed, Lord lost the government to the Liberals who took 29 seats to 26 for the Conservatives. The Tories did manage to win the popular vote besting the Liberals 47.5% to 47.2%. Lord left the Premier's Office on October 3, 2006.

On December 13, 2006, Lord announced that he was resigning as PC leader, further he said he would resign his legislative seat in Moncton East on January 31, 2007.