Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick

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Rendition of party representation in the current Legislative Assembly, as of its last change on April 17, 2007.      Liberals (32)      Progressive Conservatives (23)

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. Its members are called "Members of the Legislative Assembly" commonly referred to as "MLAs".

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 three rows on the opposition side. This is because elections have traditionally yielded a strong government majority; in fact on occasion, even with many of the seats on one side of the House, the government has spilled over to the opposition side. Quite often the House is oriented to have only two rows on the opposition benches, in the event of a large opposition adding a third row makes the opposition benches rather crowded.

[edit] Members

Most of the current members were elected at the 56th general election held on September 18, 2006. The exception is Chris Collins, who was elected in a by-election on March 5, 2007 as a result of the resignation of Bernard Lord on January 31, 2007. The standing of the legislature also changed when MLAs Joan MacAlpine-Stiles and Wally Stiles crossed the floor from the Progressive Conservatives to the Liberals on April 17, 2007.

• bold denotes a member of the Executive Council of New Brunswick
• italics denotes a party leader
• † denotes the speaker

[edit] Party standings and seating plan

• Pink-red represents members of cabinet, while red are backbench government members.
• Large text represents party leaders.

The current party standings in the legislature are as follows:

[edit] See also

• Category:New Brunswick MLAs
• 53rd New Brunswick Legislative Assembly
• 54th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly
• 55th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly
• 56th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly

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