New Brunswick general election, 1982

← 1978

October 12, 1982

1987 →

58 seats of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick
30 seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Richard Hatfield	Doug Young	George Little
Party	Progressive Conservative	Liberal	New Democratic
Leader since	1967	1982	1980
Leader's seat	Carleton Centre	Tracadie	Ran in Kings West
Last election	30	28	0
Seats won	39	18	1
Seat change	9	10	1
Percentage	47.45%	41.3%	10.2%
Swing	3.06%	3.06%	3.72%

Map of New Brunswick's ridings coloured in based on the winning parties and their popular vote

Premier before election

Richard Hatfield
Progressive Conservative

Premier-designate

Richard Hatfield
Progressive Conservative

The 30th New Brunswick general election was held on October 12, 1982, to elect 58 members to the 50th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, the governing house of the province of New Brunswick, Canada. It saw Richard Hatfield's Progressive Conservative Party win its largest majority ever to that time. (Bernard Lord beat this record in 1999.)

The Opposition Liberal Party had changed leaders four times since the eve of the 1978 election. It chose Doug Young just months before the vote in a divisive contest that came down to a final ballot against Joseph A. Day.

The PCs ran two separate campaigns - one in English and one in French. The francophone campaign, which was mostly run by Hatfield's French lieutenant Jean-Maurice Simard, began with the Grand Ralliement, a symposium on language rights which took place in Shippagan ten days before the election call. Over 400 notable Acadians and other francophones attended. The dual campaigns were remarkably separate from each other, and in some cases contradictory: the English campaign revolved around attacking Doug Young's economic record, while the French campaign pointed out Hatfield's role working with Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in enshrining francophone rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Wikipedia