Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick

The Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick is located in Fredericton. It was established de jure when the colony was created in 1784, but only came in to session in 1786 following the first elections in late 1785. Until 1891, it was the lower house in a bicameral legislature when its upper house counterpart, the Legislative Council of New Brunswick, was abolished.

The New Brunswick Legislative Building is the current building that houses the Assembly. It opened in 1882, having been constructed by J.C. Dumaresq, following the destruction of the original building, known as Province Hall, by fire in 1880. It is a Victorian building with a 41 metre wide dome.

The legislative chamber is designed to have four rows on the government side and two rows on the opposition side. This is because elections have traditionally yielded a strong government majority; in fact on occasion, even with 2/3s of the seats on one side of the House, the government has spilled over to the opposition side. Only two elections — 1978 and 2003 — have required the House to be reoriented to three rows on either side which results in very cramped opposition benches.

Members

The current members were elected in the 55th general election held on June 9 2003 except for Victor Boudreau who was elected in a by-election on October 4 2004 and Ed Doherty who was elected in a by-election on November 14 2005.

The standings were changed further on January 13 2006, when Frank Branch left the Liberal caucus to sit as an independent; and on February 17 2006, when then Progressive Conservative MLA Michael Malley crossed the floor to sit as an independent thus putting Bernard Lord's government into a minority situation. Malley, while serving as speaker, changed his affiliation back to Progressive Conservative on April 13 2006. Some controversy arose following this as following the 2003 election, the House unanimously passed a motion requiring the Opposition Liberals to pair a member with the speaker during meetings of committees of the whole in order to maintain the government majority in such situations. The Opposition argued that there was no precedent for a speaker to cross the floor and therefore, they did not recognize that a majority government existed and would not honour this motion under the circumstances. The House voted on May 30 2006 to express confidence in the Speaker and therefore, implicitly, approve of his change of affiliation. From that date forward, the Liberals accepted Malley as a Progressive Conservative.

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