Shawn Graham - Graham's Leadership Questioned

Graham's Leadership Questioned

Despite his victories, the governing Tories and the media continued to view Graham as weak. Rumours suggested that Graham was being pressured to step aside in favour of either Mike Murphy, Kelly Lamrock or Andy Savoy.

Following a by-election victory by the Liberals on October 4, 2004 in Shediac-Cap-Pelé, Graham took a more aggressive stance to dispel this belief. He named a new chief of staff and replaced a third of his staff on October 28, 2004 while pledging to defeat the government and force an election in the next session of the legislature. Graham's upward momentum continued when, in an opinion poll released on December 9, 2004, the Liberals expanded their lead over the Conservatives to 46% to 36%, but also, for the first time since Graham became leader, he was the preferred choice of New Brunswickers for premier beating the incumbent Bernard Lord 34% to 27%. A further poll some months later showed that Graham continued to hold a lead over Lord but by a smaller margin.

In the spring session of the legislature, Graham attempted to pass a snap motion of no confidence on during his speech on the budget. There was brief excitement on Liberal benches as less than half of the government caucus was present for Graham's speech, however the speaker ruled that the vote would be held along with the main budget motion at the end of the following week. Graham was criticised because when the vote was held two of his members were absent. Graham defended their absence arguing that, because New Democratic Party leader Elizabeth Weir was also absent, it was impossible to defeat the government, and he did not see the need to whip his members.

Graham's victory in a subsequent by-election on November 14, 2005 in Saint John Harbour with candidate Ed Doherty, as well as his continued lead in opinion polls, led most to end their criticism of his leadership for a time. In 2006, however, following the brief minority government when Michael Malley left the government caucus for 6 weeks, Graham took a very aggressive stance towards forcing an election. A prolonged dispute over the functioning of legislature was undertaken, crippling most of the business of the House. The media and, seemingly the public, largely blamed Graham and the Liberals for this and, for the first time in over 2 years, in June 2006 the PCs regained the lead in opinion polls and Lord took a double-digit lead in preference for Premier. These disappointing poll results for Liberals renewed questions in Graham's leadership.