Every installment of The Weekly Writ includes a short history of one of Canada’s elections. Here are the ones I have written about elections and leadership races in New Brunswick.

This and other #EveryElectionProject hubs will be updated as more historical capsules are written.

1925 New Brunswick election

The province’s first Acadian premier goes down to defeat

August 10, 1925

New Brunswick’s economy was depressed, the government was indebted and unemployment in the province was high. But the previous election had been held five years ago. Like it or not, Premier Pierre-Jean Veniot had to send New Brunswickers to the polls in 1925.

Though parties weren’t officially recognized at the time, Veniot was a Liberal. He was also New Brunswick’s first Acadian premier, taking over from Walter Foster when he resigned in 1923.

On July 17, with the clock running out on the legislature, Veniot set the date for the next election: August 10, 1925.

The biggest issue in the campaign was the Liberal government’s huge hydro-electricity project at Grand Falls. Veniot had always intended on making this publicly-funded project the ballot box issue, stating in 1924 that “we feel the people should have a final voice in the matter before we undertake the real work of development.”

But Veniot grew impatient, and in 1925 his government got the ball rolling on the project, passing legislation that tripled New Brunswick’s borrowing power for the project to nearly $13 million — a huge sum for a province with an annual budget of just $4.1 million at the time.

The opposition cried foul on Veniot’s flip-flop. Shortly before the campaign began, the Conservatives chose John B.M. Baxter, federal MP for Saint John, to lead the party. He would, in the words of the Conservative-friendly Moncton Times, end “the orgy of extravagance” that had occurred under the Liberals.

Baxter charged that the Veniot government was not providing nearly enough details about the feasibility of the project, especially considering its gargantuan cost. The Liberals were rushing into it for no reason — why not wait until the election was over and the people had spoken?

“Are we going to stand,” wondered Conservative candidate Leonard P.D. Tilley, “for another $15,000,000 liability jumped upon us in the last moments of a dying Government? I think the people of this Province, both Liberal and Conservative, will cry, ‘Halt’.”

The Liberals countered that the Conservatives were in hock to the big interests of the lumber and paper industries that dominated New Brunswick. The depression had hit them hard and half of the province’s saw mills had closed. They wanted reduced power rates from the Grand Falls project, but the Liberals would not give them everything they wanted.

As the campaign unfolded, Liberal-leaning newspapers pushed the narrative that Veniot was fighting for the little guy against the heartless logger barons. On the stump, the premier deplored “the brazen attempts to steal away the people’s interest.”

A side issue in the Saint John area was the Liberal government’s introduction of the compulsory pasteurization of milk, a measure that would reduce deaths from tainted milk. The Conservatives, however, attacked the measure, wanting to make people free to purchase what they termed “pure milk” and pledging to “cut out all fads and fancies” in the Department of Health. The Liberals’ health minister defended the policy on the basis that it would save lives.

But something that might have had an even bigger impact on the results was the strain of anti-French bigotry in some quarters of anglophone New Brunswick. The Acadian, Catholic and French-speaking population in the province formed a big minority, but a minority nonetheless. The English Protestant majority in the south was not particularly receptive to the idea of an Acadian premier.

While Baxter himself didn’t attack Veniot’s heritage — he even attempted speaking French to audiences in the north — there was an undeniable “whispering campaign” that passed along the message that ‘a vote for Veniot is a vote for the Pope of Rome’. There were allegations that the Ku Klux Klan, which was an active player in Canadian elections in the 1920s, was involved in trying to influence voters as well.

As Arthur T. Doyle puts it:

“It was one of the great campaigns in New Brunswick’s stormy political history: the posters, the cartoons, the exhaustive canvassing, the countless meetings, the ginger ale and ice cream picnics, the rallies, the oratory, and the endless handshakings. The leaders took full advantage of the fashionable automobile and the modern highway network to criss-cross the province attending massive rallies. Probably no other two New Brunswick politicians had achieved so much exposure in a single campaign … In many small towns they attracted audiences of over 1,000, and in the cities, the crowds sometimes exceeded 2,000 … For the political parties, it was almost certainly the most expensive election ever. While the Liberals said the lumber companies financed the Conservative campaign, the Conservatives said the Grand Falls contractors financed the Liberals. They were probably both right.1

Turnout was strong on election day. After the votes were all cast crowds of hundreds gathered outside newspaper offices to await the results. As the numbers rolled in, they were announced over megaphone and written on blackboards in the windows of the offices.

The result was a big victory for John Baxter and the Conservatives, who won 37 seats — an increase of 24 since the 1920 election. The Liberals dropped 13 seats, winning only 11. The United Farmers (who had burst onto the scene in 1920) were wiped out, including the three who ran as supporters of the Liberal government in Carleton county.

While the debate over the Grand Falls project might have dominated the campaign, the map hinted at the linguistic divide that might have been just as decisive.

The only seats the Liberals won came in the counties of Madawaska, Victoria, Gloucester and Kent — areas with big French-speaking Acadian populations. The Conservatives swept the southern anglophone ridings, defeating incumbent Liberal MLAs in places like Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John.

Veniot held on as leader only until 1926, when he made a successful jump to federal politics with Mackenzie King’s Liberals.

Baxter’s Conservatives, meanwhile, would be re-elected in 1930 and the Grand Falls project would be completed in 1931 — after it was sold to a private company.

But, like many Great Depression-era governments, the Conservatives would be turfed in the subsequent election in 1935 by the Liberals under Allison Dysart, a leader who would inspire the political career of Louis Robichaud who, in 1960, became New Brunswick’s first Acadian premier with an electoral mandate of his own.

1932 New Brunswick Liberal leadership

Twice interim, Dysart made permanent leader of the NB Liberals

October 5, 1932

On a fall day in 1932, some 600 Liberals made their way to the Fredericton Opera House to attend their provincial party’s convention. At issue was who would lead the New Brunswick Liberals into the next election — and potentially back into power.

“The majority of the Liberal delegates arrived in the capital by auto,” reported the Fredericton Daily Mail, and “the convention which began shortly after two o’clock was one of the most enthusiastic ever held in this city.”

New Brunswick, like the rest of Canada, was in the grips of the Great Depression. The challenge had sparked rumours that the Liberals would enter into a coalition with the governing Conservatives. It was something those gathered at the convention strongly and clearly opposed.

The goal was to kick the Conservatives out of office, regaining what the Liberals had lost in 1925. At the convention, a wire from Mackenzie King was read to the delegates, in which the Liberal opposition leader in Ottawa called for a “Liberal united determination to win back New Brunswick.”

The choice for leader came down to two men. There was John B. McNair, a lawyer from Fredericton who had long been active in party circles. But the favourite was Allison Dysart, the party’s acting leader in the Legislative Assembly.

Dysart had sat in the assembly as the member for Kent since 1917 and had even been interim leader before. After the Liberals’ defeat in 1925, Dysart took over leadership duties after the resignation of Peter Veniot. But as the 1930 provincial election approached, the party urged Dysart to step side. He was a Catholic, after all, and Veniot’s Catholicism (and Acadian heritage) was blamed for the party’s defeat.

The change to a Protestant leader didn’t have the desired outcome, and the Liberals (as well as leader Wendell Jones in his own riding) were defeated in 1930. Leaderless on the opposition benches, Dysart took over the job once again.

This time, though, Liberal delegates were set on keeping Dysart in his post for good and, according to the Moncton Transcript, Dysart prevailed by 459 votes to 97 for McNair.

In his victory speech, Dysart “levelled a barrage of vituperation against the expenditures of the present [Conservative] government,” according to the Daily Mail. As a consolation prize, McNair was elected as president of the party.

An editorial in the Daily Mail welcomed Dysart’s victory.

“From east, west, north and south came sturdy delegates determined to square the account by restoring Mr. Dysart to the position from which he was cruelly ousted just prior to the election of 1930, lop away the mouldering branches and make some effort to restore the old party to the position, which it held in New Brunswick before it fell upon evil days, largely as the result of kindergarten leadership.”

Dysart would eventually lead the Liberals to a sweeping victory in 1935. Among those appointed to his cabinet would be John B. McNair, the new attorney general. While Dysart would only govern New Brunswick until 1940, McNair would step in and continue the Liberal run in power for another 12 years.

Little did those delegates know that the two men they chose from in 1932 would govern the province for most of the next two decades.

1982 New Brunswick election

Richard Hatfield’s last majority

October 12, 1982

The 1978 election in New Brunswick was a near-death experience for premier Richard Hatfield and his Progressive Conservatives. In Hatfield’s attempt to win a third consecutive term in office for his scandal-plagued government, he was nearly toppled by Joseph Daigle and the Liberals. Only two seats separated the two parties.

The Parti Acadien, which advocated for the rights of New Brunswick’s French-speaking Acadians (and ultimately a separate province), emerged as a force in the election, taking 12% of the vote where it ran candidates and nearly electing one MLA.

Acadians had traditionally backed the New Brunswick Liberals, acting as a solid base for that party and a ceiling for the Progressive Conservatives. The PCs needed to win southern, anglophone New Brunswick in order to form government, while the Liberals could afford to only split the south.

But with the rise of the Parti Acadien signaling that the Liberals no longer had a monopoly on the Acadian electorate, Hatfield and his francophone lieutenant, Jean-Maurice Simard, spied an opportunity.

Hatfield’s government launched a charm offensive in the north, investing huge sums of money on infrastructure projects and new schools and hospitals, as well as creating autonomous French-speaking school districts and a bilingual public service, bringing in the controversial Bill 88 which recognized the equality of the two linguistic communities.

While welcomed by Acadians, these efforts did not go over particularly well with English-speakers in southern New Brunswick. Nor was Hatfield’s PC caucus entirely behind him.

But it also split the Liberals, as Daigle flip-flopped on Bill 88 and shook the confidence of his MLAs, who eventually voted by a margin of 23 to three to remove him as leader. His replacement was 41-year-old lawyer Douglas Young, who represented a riding in the north.

The Parti Acadien, too, faced its own internal divisions, such as what position it should take over Quebec’s 1980 referendum. The Hatfield PCs decided to take advantage of the divisions plaguing their opponents. They would conduct two entirely separate campaigns, one led by Hatfield in English in the south and the other led by Simard in French in the north.

When Hatfield officially began the campaign in early September 1982, he pledged to protect the province from the effects of the recession that was hurting the country. He would exercise restraint but would not cut services. At the outset, he enjoyed a small lead in the polls over the Liberals, despite New Brunswick’s difficult economic situation, high unemployment and struggling forest industry.

Though Young was also critical of his federal cousins, Hatfield tried to tie Young and the New Brunswick Liberals to prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who was unpopular at the time. He also reminded voters of the role — exaggerated or otherwise — Young played in engineering Daigle’s downfall. Such disloyal ambition could not be trusted in the premier’s office.

In the north, Simard took a different tack, emphasizing the steps the PCs had already taken to empower the Acadian population and promising to implement much of the platform that had been the Parti Acadien’s.

The dual nature of the campaign proved divisive within the PC Party, but it proved effective among the electorate — who largely existed in two distinct media and political ecosystems.

It was a campaign dominated by pricey promises from the PCs and Liberals, including such measures as mortgage assistance, help for small businesses, job creation programs and universal kindergarten. What’s more, the platforms put forward by the PCs and Liberals were similar, making it difficult for voters to draw a distinction between the two.

They weren’t the only parties in the field. The Parti Acadien ran a reduced number of candidates in the north. The New Democrats, now under school teacher George Little, ran a more professional campaign than they had in 1978, with nearly a full slate of candidates and help from organizers with experience electing the NDP in British Columbia.

The campaign was considered a close one heading into election day, but the result was the biggest majority Hatfield would ever win.

The Progressive Conservatives won 39 seats, flipping a number of seats from red to blue in areas with significant Acadian populations. The PCs were up nine seats from the 1978 election, gaining three percentage points to finish with 47.4% of the vote.

The Liberals lost a lot of ground in northern New Brunswick as well as a few seats in the south, dropping 10 seats to just 18 and three points to 41.3% of the vote.

The New Democrats successfully won Tantramar, where they had finished a close second in 1978. Little was defeated in his own riding, but he did lead the NDP to their first seat victory ever.

Support for the Parti Acadien collapsed to just 0.9% and no candidate placed better than third. It would be the last election contested by the party.

Michael Harris, writing in The Globe and Mail, took a dim view of the campaign that had unfolded:

“For much of the campaign Mr. Hatfield and Mr. Young traded insults. The Premier accused Mr. Young of being disloyal to Mr. Daigle in leading the caucus revolt that ousted the former Liberal leader; Mr. Young characterized Mr. Hatfield as the head of a corrupt administration in bed with the federal Liberals. In the cut and thrust of what was often a nasty exchange, Mr. Hatfield emerged the clear winner.”

But Hatfield couldn’t keep up his high-wire act forever. Scandals continued to plague his government and the divisions he fostered in the 1982 campaign eventually ripped the PCs apart. In the 1987 election, Hatfield would finally go to defeat when Frank McKenna and the Liberals won a clean sweep of all 58 of New Brunswick’s ridings.

NOTE ON SOURCES: When available, election results are sourced from Elections New Brunswick and J.P. Kirby’s election-atlas.ca. Historical newspapers are also an important source, and I’ve attempted to cite the newspapers quoted from.

In addition, information in these capsules are sourced from the following works:

• Front Benches and Back Rooms, by Arthur T. Doyle

• Louis Robichaud: La révolution acadienne, by Michel Cormier

• The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma, by Jacques Poitras