Bernard Lord

Infobox_President


name = Bernard Lord
small| caption = Mr. Bernard Lord
order = 30th Premier of New Brunswick
term_start = June 21, 1999
term_end = October 3, 2006
predecessor = Camille Theriault
successor = Shawn Graham
birth_date = birth date and age|1965|09|27
birth_place = Roberval, Quebec
death_date =
death_place =
party = Progressive Conservative
spouse = Diane Haché
religion = Roman Catholic|

Bernard Lord, ONB (born September 27, 1965 in Roberval, Quebec) is a Canadian politician. Lord served as Premier of New Brunswick from 1999 to 2006.

Early life

Bernard Lord was born in Roberval, Quebec and raised in a bilingual household in Moncton, New Brunswick where he would spend the rest of his early life. Lord's brother would go on to be internationally acclaimed concert pianist, Roger Lord. Bernard Lord took a keen interest in politics as a child; he first campaigned for the New Brunswick New Democratic Party while a university student but joined the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick in 1995. 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 Lord attended the Université de Moncton, he had some electoral success being elected the president of the Université de Moncton student union (FEUM) and served for three terms. Lord's parents are named Ralph and Émilie (Morin) Lord.

Election as leader

In 1997, Lord was elected leader of the PC Party of New Brunswick and then became the MLA for the district of Moncton East in a 1998 by-election. Much of Lord's success came from the countless months he spent meeting party members across New Brunswick and in part because he was also flawlessly bilingual 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 Norman 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.

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 (on June 21) 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 erupted after Edmonton to lobby the Premier into federal politics, everything from a website to a coast to coast organization [ Shawn Berry, "Tory Youth leader in P.E.I. backs Lord for federal leadership". NB Telegraph-Journal, A1, September 9th 2002 ] was being set up to woo the Premier to leave Fredericton and head to Ottawa. [cite web| url=http://www.amazon.com/Right-Fight-Bernard-Conservative-Dilemma/dp/0864923767| title=The Right Fight|]

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, with the Liberals using the issue of rising car insurance to catch the PC Party off guard. The Party wasn't able to regain its footing until relatively late in the campaign, and barely held on to a majority over the Liberal Party led by Shawn Graham.

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.

On August 10, 2006, Lord announced that on August 19 he would be calling an election for September 18. This election call was in response to the loss of a caucus member, Peter Mesheau, who announced his intention to resign to work in the private sector. The resignation would have caused Lord to slip into a minority government and the subsequent by-election could have flipped the balance of power to the Liberals. Lord decided that instead of a by-election deciding the fate of his government, he would let the people choose. Some observers saw Lord's election call as a bold move considering his popularity numbers had only recently started to surpass the Liberal Leader. This move was very indicative of Lord's leadership style however, always focused on balance.

In the head to head campaign that followed, Lord lost the government to the Liberals who took 29 seats to 26 for the Conservatives. The Tories did manage to win the popular vote besting the Liberals 47.5% to 47.2%. Lord left the Premier's Office on October 3, 2006.

On December 13 2006, Lord announced that he was resigning as PC leader, further he said he would resign his legislative seat in Moncton East on January 31 2007. [ [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2006/12/13/nb-lordsfuture.html "Lord quits as PC leader, resigns seat"] CBC News, December 13, 2006]

Lord was born on the same day as Canadian Minister of Defense Peter MacKay.

Post-Premier

After leaving politics, Lord took a position with the law firm McCarthy Tetrault splitting time between their offices in Montreal and Ottawa while continuing to maintain his residence in Fredericton.

On December 3, 2007 Bernard Lord was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as head of the Bilingualism Committee. He will review Canada's Official Language Laws, and make suggestions where improvements can be made. [http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?category=1&id=1923]

In December 2007, Lord was named as the President of the 2009 CHL Memorial Cup selection-committee.

Honours

In 2007, he was awarded the Order of New Brunswick. [cite web|url=http://www.gnb.ca/cnb/news/iga/2007e1002ig.htm|title=Order of New Brunswick recipients announced]

* Grand Officier de l’Ordre de la Pleiade (La Francophonie)

References