Shawn Graham - Towards The 2006 Election

Towards The 2006 Election

Throughout the term that began following the 2003 election, Graham has worked hard to portray himself and his caucus as a "government-in-waiting". From the Lord government's introduction of controversial health reforms in the spring of 2004, Graham said he would force an election at his earliest opportunity.

His strategy was to focus heavily on policy, and his party introduced a record number of pieces of legislation for an opposition party. This is particularly remarkable because New Brunswick members of the legislature received no professional drafting staff to assist them in writing private members' bills at the time.

In addition to his legislative agenda, Graham and the Liberals launched a series of regional policy meetings culminating in a policy convention in the fall of 2005. Graham also convened a meeting of all of the Liberal leaders of the Maritime provinces to discuss common policy objectives, engaged in several tours of the province on particular policy issues and took several trips to Ottawa to meet with federal ministers on various issues.

In early 2006, Graham set out on a tour of the northeast United States, Washington, D.C. and the Maritimes to promote New Brunswick as an "energy hub" and his idea of building a second reactor at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station.

On February 17, 2006, Bernard Lord's government was reduced to a minority when Michael Malley crossed the floor to sit as an independent. Graham said, if Malley would support the Liberals, he would have brought down the government on an April 7, 2006 budget vote forcing an early election. Malley was subsequently elected speaker however, creating an equality of government and opposition members; the April 7 vote came to a tie which was broken in favour of the government by Malley in accordance with tradition.

Following this, Malley rejoined the Conservative caucus from the speaker's chair. This created some controversy and Graham's Liberals held up some business in the House as a procedural stalement ensued for some weeks. Finally the Conservative and Liberal House Leaders signed an agreement on May 31, 2006 which laid out a detailed plan for the conduct of the business of the House and which seemingly guaranteed that the next election would be held on Lord's preferred date of October 15, 2007. This protracted procedural battle did not seem to go well for the Liberals when, in an opinion poll released on June 12, 2006 but conducted largely during the height of the procedural infighting, the Tories took the lead over the Liberals for the first time in any poll since August 2003 with a margin of 45% to 39% for Lord's Conservatives.