New Brunswick's linguistic rift of the 1990s on the right

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

On October 13, 1987, after four consecutive majority governments, the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick, led by Richard Hatfield, suffered a fate that only one other incumbent government in the British Common­wealth had suffered. Not only was it shut out of the legislature, but the winner of the election — the Liberal Party, led by Frank McKenna — won every seat. The only other time that a legislature was formed without an opposition was on July 23, 1935, when the Liberal Party of Prince Edward Island pulled the same feat at the expense of that province's Conservative Party. Thus began a difficult decade for the Progres­sive Conservatives and the right-of-centre in New Brunswick.

It can be argued that, from the 1950s into the 1980s, the gap between the centre-left and the centre-right was narrower than it is today. However, a polarization began on the right in the '80s, between those who espoused some progressive values — often referred to as "Red Tories" — and those who were more socially conservative — "Blue Tories." The latter decried how governments, in their view, had degenerated into "nanny states," and many were not warm (to say the least) to how English and French bilingualism had been enshrined in the late '60s.

Bilingualism has always been controversial in New Brunswick, where one-third of the population is francophone, a community that, well into the '60s, was disadvantaged compared to the anglophone majority. New Brunswick of the '60s and '70s was, after all, where the mayor of the second largest city at the time openly opposed bilingualism in any sphere of public life, despite the city's demographics reflecting exactly that of the province. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dissent that surfaced on the right by the '80s was over bilingualism.

The inevitable soul searching began on the right after the humiliation of 1987, but then the unlikely happened. In Western Canada, the Confederation of Regions Party, or CORe, had splintered from the Social Credit Party. But after that party had enjoyed modest but encouraging success in New Bruns­wick during the 1988 federal election, Arch Pafford formed a provincial wing of the party the following year. Running in the 1991 election on the right of the PCs, CORe advocated for the repeal of the federal Official Languages Act of 1969, and proposed providing government services in French only in areas with a large francophone population. The Liberals had remained popular by the end of their first mandate but, to the surprise of many observers, the election resulted in CORe becoming the official opposition.

New Brunswick

52 → 1991 :: 23 Sep 1991 — 10 Sep 1995 — Majority  LIB  Summary Government Opposition Unproductive votes Party Votes Seats Party Votes Seats Party Votes # % % # # % % # # % Parliament: 52    Majority Majority=30  Ab.Maj.: +17  G.Maj.: +34 Population [1991]: 723,900 Eligible: 518,011  Particip.: 80.06% Votes: 414,728  Unproductive: 3,988 Seats: 58   1 seat = 1.72% ↳ Elec.Sys.:  FPTP: 58   ↳ By acclamation: 0 (0.00%) Plurality: Votes  LIB  Seats  LIB  Plurality: ↳ +106,634 (+25.91%) Plurality: ↳ Seats: +38 (+65.52%) Position2: Votes  COR  Seats  COR  Candidacies: 224 (✓ 58)   m: 172 (✓ 48)   f: 52 (✓ 10)  LIB  58   COR  48   PC  58   NDP  58   IND  2   LIB 193,890 47.11 79.31 46 COR PC NDP 87,256 85,210 44,384 21.20 20.70 10.78 13.79 5.17 1.72 8 3 1 IND REJ ABS 850 3,138 103,283 0.21 0.76 ——  !!!  5 (8.62%)

But what would have happened if the right had not splintered? What if, instead, Pafford and his followers had managed to pull the Progressive Con­ser­va­tives to their way of thinking and had run under that single banner?

To find the answer, let's:

Thus we could conclude that there would have been 24 differences.

The result was that 16 more Liberals than would have been expected were the first past the post. However, it was also clear that the Progressive Conservatives had still not recovered from their pummelling four years earlier, winning only three seats but managing to get just enough of the popular vote to obtain official party status in the legislature. But had the PCs and CORe been a single united party, the division of seats among parties would have been a blend traditional for New Brunswick, with the Liberals still obtaining a majority but of only two seats.

The legislative inexperience of the elected CORe members and ongoing infighting within their party led them to be an ineffective opposition. These factors helped the PCs to banish CORe from the legislature in the 1995 election, but the disarray within the latter had rubbed off on the entire right, leading the Liberals to being even more popular and winning their third consecutive majority.

New Brunswick

53 → 1995 :: 11 Sep 1995 —  6 Jun 1999 — Majority  LIB  Summary Government Opposition Unproductive votes Party Votes Seats Party Votes Seats Party Votes # % % # # % % # # % Parliament: 53    Majority Majority=28  Ab.Maj.: +21  G.Maj.: +41 Population [1995]: 750,692 (est.) Eligible: 517,132  Particip.: 76.04% Votes: 393,250  Unproductive: 34,274 Seats: 55   1 seat = 1.82% ↳ Elec.Sys.:  FPTP: 55   ↳ By acclamation: 0 (0.00%) Plurality: Votes  LIB  Seats  LIB  Plurality: ↳ +80,903 (+20.76%) Plurality: ↳ Seats: +42 (+76.36%) Position2: Votes  PC  Seats  PC  Candidacies: 226 (✓ 55)   m: 179 (✓ 46)   f: 47 (✓ 9)  LIB  55   PC  55   NDP  55   COR  36   OTH  17   IND  8   LIB 201,150 51.63 87.27 48 PC NDP 120,247 37,579 30.87 9.65 10.91 1.82 6 1 COR OTH IND REJ ABS 27,684 1,267 1,635 3,688 123,882 7.11 0.33 0.42 0.94 —— Difference since the previous general election: -3 seats  OTH  →  NLP  17  !!!  9 (16.36%)

Some optimistic Progressive Conservatives may have tried to overcome their disappointment by spinning these results — that they got twice as many seats and increased their share of the popular vote by 50% compared to the previous general election — but the fact remained that the Liberals had emerged even stronger than in the previous legislature. To what extent did the 7.11% of the votes that remained loyal to CORe hurt the PCs?

To find the answer, let's:

Thus we could conclude that there would have been 10 differences.

Indeed, this time, the Liberals finished first in 10 ridings thanks to vote splitting, but even if those seats had gone to the PCs, their majority would still have been +11 instead of +21. By the 1999 general election, CORe had lapsed into insignificance: it presented only 18 candidates out of a possible 55, and garnered only 0.71% of the popular vote. In fact, this showing was so poor that it in no way hindered the PCs, by then led by Bernard Lord, in forming the province's strongest Conservative government since Confederation.