New Brunswick general election, 2003

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:

1. improved universal healthcare,
2. keeping the power utility NB Power as a public, crown corporation, and
3. the lowering of auto insurance rates.

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.

New Democratic Party of New Brunswick leader, Elizabeth Weir, was the only member of her party to win a seat.

See also Canadian Politics in 2003.

Results

Party		Party Leader	# of cands	Seats				Popular Vote
				1999	Diss.	After	% Change	#	%	Change	Progressive Conservative	Bernard Lord	55	44	46	28	-39.1%	174,092	45.4%	-7.6%	Liberal	Shawn Graham	55	10	7	26	+271%	170,028	44.4%	+7.1%	New Democratic	Elizabeth Weir	55	1	1	1	0%	36,989	9.7%	+0.9%	Grey	Jim Webb	10	n/a	-	-	0%	1,550	0.4%	n/a2	Independents	n/a	2	-	-	-	0%	415	0.1%	-0.1%
Total			177	55	541	55	-	383,074	100%	-2.8%

¹ One seat was vacant
² The Grey Party did not contest the 1999 election.