insurance rates

Starting out as a predicted landslide for Bernard Lord's Progressive Conservatives, the New Brunswick general election, 2003 quickly turned around when Shawn Graham, leader of the Liberal Party of New Brunswick, took on auto insurance rates as a cause.

People in the province had seen their car insurance rates skyrocket, and the Liberal Party of New Brunswick focussed their campaign on three points:

The Liberals ran a virtually flawless campaign, whereas Lord and his PC Party faced a number of problems, especially with their position on the key issue of auto insurance which changed 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".

New Democratic Party of New Brunswick leader, Elizabeth Weir, was the only member of her party to win a seat. Companies such as Travelers and Royal & SunAlliance. The party did run 55 candidates throughout the province.

The newly founded but shortlived New Brunswick Grey Party which was a branch of the Grey Party of Canada also ran 10 candidates, including party leader Jim Webb.

See also Canadian Politics in 2003.

Results

Results by party

* The Grey Party did not contest the 1999 election.

Results by region

Candidates

Party leaders and cabinet ministers are denoted in bold.