Date | November 3–4, 1989 |
---|---|
Convention | Fredericton, New Brunswick |
Resigning leader | Richard Hatfield |
Won by | Barbara Baird Filliter |
Ballots | 1 |
Candidates | 2 |
The Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick held a leadership election between November 3–4, 1989, to elect a new leader for the party. The position had been held in an interim capacity by Malcolm MacLeod since former leader Richard Hatfield's resignation immediately following the 1987 general election after 17 years in power. Hatfield had been surrounded by a string of controversies during the later years of his leadership, leading to the party's loss of all of its seats in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick to the Liberal Party, led by Frank McKenna.
The front-runner for the leadership election was Barbara Baird Filliter, a young lawyer from Fredericton who had recently joined the party. Baird's competitor was Hazen Myers, a former member in the legislature under Hatfield's leadership. Baird won the leadership election with 1,021 votes, or 74.6 percent of the votes cast, marking the first woman to lead a conservative party in Canada.