New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative Party will have a new leader today.
Members will gather at the Fredericton Convention Centre to learn which of two candidates prevailed in mail-in balloting: former cabinet minister Daniel Allain or rookie MLA Don Monahan.
The party says the result will be announced around 4:45 p.m. There will be no voting at the convention. The deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive was Wednesday.
The race began last year to replace former premier Blaine Higgs, who resigned in October 2024 after the Liberals decisively defeated the PCs in a provincial election.
It has been a divisive contest.
Allain has rounded up a large number of endorsements from key party officials, including current and former MLAs and MPs.
But some party members have accused him of disloyalty because he was one of six MLAs who voted against Higgs, and with the opposition Liberals, in 2023 on a contentious policy about gender inclusive pronouns in provincial schools.
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Allain was the minister of local government in the Higgs government from 2020 until he was shuffled out in 2023 after that vote.
Monahan was first elected as the MLA for Arcadia-Butternut Valley-Maple Hills in the 2024 provincial election.
Both candidates are fluently bilingual.
The next New Brunswick election is scheduled for October 2028.
