New Brunswick NDP hopes to learn from its Nova Scotia counterpart

The New Brunswick NDP, which has no members in the legislative assembly, hopes to learn from its Nova Scotia counterpart's overwhelming election victory on Tuesday.

Party observers followed candidates in Nova Scotia during the election campaign, New Brunswick NDP leader Roger Duguay said Wednesday.

"When they will come back, we will sit together and try to figure out how we have to change things in New Brunswick," said Duguay.

The party's initial focus will be recruiting members and increasing visibility within the province.

Meanwhile, a former Acadia University political scientist suggested the party's name in Nova Scotia is misleading.

"Darryl Dexter himself — the soon-to-be premier — and some of the members of his caucus might have been classified as the old-fashioned red Tory," said Agar Adamson.

By shifting right, the NDP has made itself more appealing to voters, Adamson said, adding that this wasn't an overnight win for the Nova Scotia NDP. The party has been building since the 1990s.

Nova Scotian voters were disillusioned with the Liberals and the Conservatives, said  columnist Ralph Surette of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, but those parties remain stronger in the other Maritime provinces.

"The NDP goes nowhere in New Brunswick and P.E.I.," said Surette. "That's because the traditional parties there have managed to engage the issues one after another and because the public's confidence is higher than it was in Nova Scotia."

The New Brunswick NDP will hold a convention this fall to start planning for the 2010 election campaign.