The 1970 New Brunswick general election was held on October 26, 1970, to elect 58 members to the 47th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, the governing house of the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

, Canada. It saw the Liberals defeated, and a new Conservative government take over in the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

Province of

Louis Robichaud Louis Joseph Robichaud (October 21, 1925 – January 6, 2005), popularly known as "Little Louis" or "P'tit-Louis", was the second (but first elected) Acadian premier of New Brunswick, serving from 1960 to 1970. With the Equal Opportunity ...

, the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...

premier since 1960, called the election early by surprise. Some analysts believed Robichaud was tiring of the job of Premier, and that he had accomplished everything that he had set out to do, such as the Official Languages Act in 1969. With no willing leadership candidates ready to take over at the time, Robichaud called an election. He had hoped that the Progressive Conservatives, led by new leader

Richard Hatfield Richard Bennett Hatfield (April 9, 1931 – April 26, 1991) was a New Brunswick politician and the longest serving premier of New Brunswick from 1970 to 1987.Richard Starr, ''Richard Hatfield, The Seventeen Year Saga,'' 1987, Early life ...

, would not be ready for a snap election, but Hatfield's platform was released two days before Robichaud's. In fact, the Liberals were forced to write their platform so rapidly that they could not get it in by the publishing deadlines for the local

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s in which they purchased advertising space, forcing them to run blank pages. That gaffe was the major turning point in the campaign. Meanwhile, Hatfield grew increasingly confident. He campaigned across the province in a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

, and analysts were surprised at the ease in which he communicated in both official languages. Although Liberals won more of the popular vote, Conservatives won a majority of the seats in the provincial legislature. This was the first New Brunswick provincial election contested province-wide by the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

. The party had made its first appearance in New Brunswick provincial politics in the 1967 election but ran candidates only in the district of

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

. The party fielded candidates in 15 out of 22 districts in the 1970 election, but failed to win any seats. This and previous NB elections had each county as an electoral district electing a varying number of members, based on their respective populations, with multi-member districts predominating. Each voter was able to cast multiple votes - as many as the seats to fill in the district (

Plurality block voting Plurality block voting is a type of block voting method for multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled. The candidates with the most votes are elected. The usual result when the candidates div ...

). "New Brunswick’s counties originally provided the basis for the province’s electoral districts, an arrangement that lasted with only minor changes until 1974. Each district was assigned multiple MLAs (2-5) roughly according to population size and the presence of distinct communities inside each district. However, the boundaries of the new districts and number of seats to be assigned were assigned arbitrarily, and not without a little gerrymandering"

Results

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1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

, style="text-align:center;", Elected , - , align="left",

, 26 , 32 , 48.4% , - , align="left",

, 32 , 26 , 48.6% , - , align="left", J. Albert Richardson , 0 , 0 , 2.8% , - , , colspan=2, Other / Non-Partisan , 0 , 0 , 0.2%

Results

References

Further reading