Bernard Lord
Encyclopedia : B : BE : BER : Bernard Lord
Bernard Lord, LL.B. , BA (born September 27 1965 in Roberval, Quebec) is a Canadian politician. He is currently serving as New Brunswick's 30th Premier.
Early life
Lord was raised in a bilingual household in Moncton, New Brunswick. He took a keen interest in politics as a child, he first campaigned for the New Brunswick New Democratic Party while a university student but later joined the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick. After graduating from high school, he earned a bachelor's degree in social science with a major in economics as well as a bachelor's degree in common law from the Université de Moncton.
While in university, he had some electoral success being elected the president of UdeM's student union. In 1995, however, he made two unsuccessful bids for mainstream politics. In May, he was defeated in a bid for a seat on Dieppe town council and in October, he ran for the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick but was defeated by a margin of over 3-to-1 in the riding of Dieppe-Memramcook.
Election as leader
Despite this, in 1997, he became leader of the PC Party of New Brunswick and then became the Member of the Legislative Assembly for the district of Moncton East in a 1998 by-election. He was able to become leader of the PC Party due to his being the only bilingual candidate and being able to draw a strong concentration of support in the Moncton-area, one of four cities in which members could vote. Lord defeated Norm Betts, who was the perceived frontrunner, as well as Margaret-Ann Blaney, who, with Betts, would go on to serve in Lord's cabinet, and Cleveland Allaby a Fredericton lawyer who would go on to be retained by the New Brunswick Department of Justice for large fees amid controversy under Lord's term and then be the subject of intense media attention when Lord said that Michael Malley's decision to leave the party was in part due to demands that Allaby be named a judge [link].
Premier
On June 7,1999, Lord's PC party overcame an early deficit in the polls to pull out a landslide victory on the provincial general election, winning 44 of 55 seats in the legislature. At just 33 years of age, Lord became the youngest premier in Canadian history.
Using the successful tactics from the 1994 United States elections of Republican Congressional leader, Newt Gingrich, Bernard Lord was elected on his "200 Days of Change" platform, consisting of 20 promises of things he would do within the first 200 days of his mandate if he were elected premier. Although he did accomplish all of them, many opponents of Lord argued with him over the ways he accomplished those goals, and that he spent too much time with those 20 promises while neglecting other important matters to the province.
In 2002, Lord delivered what the media and others hailed as an electrifying speech at the national Progressive Conservative Party of Canada convention in Edmonton, Alberta, which started speculation that he might run for a job in federal politics, specifically, replacing Joe Clark as federal PC leader. A very strong movement of influential conservatives errupted after Edmonton to lobby the Premier into federal politics, everything from a website to a coast to coast organization was being set up to woo the Premier to leave Fredericton and head to Ottawa. A short time later, Lord shot down any notions that that might happen, choosing instead to remain focused on provincial politics and the 2003 New Brunswick election.
That election was not kind to Lord, as he neglected to mention the issue of rising car insurance rates until relatively late in the campaign, and barely held on to a majority over the surging Liberal Party led by Shawn Graham. The February 18, 2006 resignation from the Progressive Conservative caucus of Miramichi-Bay du Vin MLA Michael (Tanker) Malley reduced Lord's government to minority status.
Lord was again courted for federal politics in late 2003 when the PC Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance merged into the Conservative Party of Canada. In the end, Lord opted to stay in New Brunswick due to his young family and the fact that his departure would force his party into a minority government situation.
In 2004, Lord's government came under fire over a variety of unpopular stances, most notably changes to health care. These included closures of beds at hospitals in Miramichi and Dalhousie, and consolidation of four hospitals in the Upper St. John River Valley into one. The Liberals, under leader Shawn Graham, led in public opinion polls as of the summer of 2004 and maintained that lead; however, Bernard Lord remained the most favoured Leader to be Premier of New Brunswick for a time, though Graham has since surpassed him in that measure as well.
In 2005, Lord's popularity continued to drop although there were renewed calls for him to enter federal politics.
Much fun has been made of the fact that his last name is "Lord". The policy of referring to political figures by their last names has led people to infer a connection with God, who is also known as Lord. In one instance, a banner in a polling station reading "Trust in the Lord" had the last word covered with black tape so that it would not influence voting.
Lord's brother is the internationally acclaimed concert pianist, Roger Lord.
| First Ministers of Canada |
|
| Stephen Harper (Prime Minister of Canada) Pat Binns (PE) | Lorne Calvert (SK) | Gordon Campbell (BC) | Jean Charest (QC) | Gary Doer (MB) | Dennis Fentie (YT) | Joe Handley (NT) | Ralph Klein (AB) | Bernard Lord (NB) | Rodney MacDonald (NS) | Dalton McGuinty (ON) | Paul Okalik (NU) | Danny Williams (NL) | |
| Premiers of New Brunswick |
| |
|---|---|---|
| Colony: Fisher | Gray | Fisher | S. L. Tilley | Smith | P. Mitchell Province: | Wetmore | King | Hathaway | King | Fraser | Hanington | Blair | J. Mitchell | Emmerson | Tweedie | Pugsley | Robinson | Hazen | J. Flemming | Clarke | Murray | Foster | Veniot | Baxter | Richards | L. P. Tilley | Dysart | McNair | H. Flemming | Robichaud | Hatfield | McKenna | Frenette | Thériault | Lord | ||
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.