Elections in Canada: NB with several interesting tours to watch as voters head to the polls | The Canadian News

Canadians are heading to the polls today, and there are several interesting pageants to watch in New Brunswick.

The polls close at 8:30 pm AT and we will update this story as the results begin to arrive.

Before the elections, New Brunswick had seven Liberal seats and three Conservative seats.

Fredericton’s leadership became Liberal in June, when Green Party MP Jenica Atwin crossed the runway and joined the Liberal Party.

Atwin had been elected in the 2019 elections, defeating the Liberal incumbent, and was the first Green Party deputy to be elected on the East Coast.

Atwin’s defection further highlighted the tension within the Green Party and Annamie Paul’s leadership.

In 2019, the three-way race between Atwin, conservative runner-up Andrea Johnson and liberal incumbent Matt DeCourcey was only divided by 2,577 votes.

Johnson is vying for the seat again this time, while Nicole O’Byrne is tossing her hat into the ring for the Green Party, and Atwin will try to keep him a Liberal. Shawn Oldenburg is the NDP candidate, while Brandon Kirby, June Patterson and Jen Smith are also on the ballot.

The Miramichi-Grand Lake ride features two former New Brunswick cabinet ministers facing off: liberal Lisa Harris and conservative Jake Stewart. Bruce Potter is running for the NDP, Patty Deitch is the Green candidate and Ron Nowlan is the PPC candidate.

Also, Saint John-Rothesay has “been a bit of a benchmark,” UNB political science professor JP Lewis told Global News in August, just before the election call.

Federal Conservatives are putting a familiar face on the ballot as former Saint John Mayor Mel Norton searches for a seat in Ottawa. The incumbent Wayne Long is the Liberal candidate, Don Paulin is running for the NDP, Ann McAllister is running for the Green Party and Nicholas Pereira is the PPC candidate.

Federal leaders have made stops in key districts in New Brunswick, but it hasn’t always been friendly.

On August 27, the leader of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, had a heated exchange with the provincial Minister of Education, Dominic Cardy.

The tense interaction between Bernier and his supporters was due to COVID-19 policies around masking and vaccinating children.

“They are not the children of the state,” shouted the PPC candidate, Pereira. “That is absolutely against everything … You are a piece of shit.”

Cardy later said that her constituency office was vandalized and her office received hate mail and death threats.

– with files from Callum Smith, Nathalie Sturgeon, Travis Fortnum