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Progressive Conservatives ready to choose new leader today

With 7 candidates and no clear front-runner, the Progressive Conservatives are looking at an unpredictable and dramatic day of voting for their new leader.

Dramatic day of voting expected in 7-person race for the party's leadership

Jacques Poitras · CBC News ·
Supporters of P.C. leadership candidate Brian Macdonald put up signs for him at Fredericton's Aikten Centre ahead of Saturday's convention. (CBC)

New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives are voting today for a new leader that they hope will take their party to victory in 2018.

And it's shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable and dramatic party leadership conventions in the province in a generation.

Seven candidates are in the race, making a second ballot a virtual certainty and a third ballot possible.

It's been 19 years since any party needed a second ballot in a leadership vote.

Former premier David Alward resigned as PC leader in 2014 after losing the provincial election to Liberal Brian Gallant.

The seven candidates are:

  • MLA Blaine Higgs
  • MLA Brian Macdonald
  • MLA Jake Stewart
  • Former Conservative MP Mike Allen
  • Former MP and MLA Jean Dube
  • Former Saint John mayor Mel Norton
  • Moncton lawyer Monica Barley
Leadership candidate Mike Allen looks out over the Aitken Centre floor from the stage during Friday afternoon's convention set-up. (CBC)
PC members will be able to vote in the main convention venue, the Aitken Centre in Fredericton and in satellite voting stations in Moncton, Saint John, Bathurst and St-Leonard.

Smaller voting locations will be on Grand Manan Island, Deer Island, and Campobello Island.

The candidate speeches begin at 10 a.m. and voting for the first ballot is expected to start after 1 p.m.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jacques Poitras

Provincial Affairs reporter

Jacques Poitras has been CBC's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He grew up in Moncton and covered Parliament in Ottawa for the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. He has reported on every New Brunswick election since 1995 and won awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Newspaper Awards and Amnesty International. He is also the author of five non-fiction books about New Brunswick politics and history.

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