List of premiers of New Brunswick


The Canadian province of New Brunswick was a British crown colony before it joined Canada in 1867. It had a system of responsible government beginning in 1854, and has kept its own legislature to deal with provincial matters. New Brunswick has a unicameral Westminster-style parliamentary government, in which the Premier is the leader of the party that controls the most seats in the Legislative Assembly. The Premier is New Brunswick's head of government, and the Queen of Canada is its head of state and is represented by the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick. The Premier picks a cabinet from the elected members to form the Executive Council of New Brunswick, and presides over that body.
Members are first elected to the legislature during general elections. General elections must be conducted every five years from the date of the last election, but the Premier may ask for early dissolution of the Legislative Assembly. An election may also take place if the governing party loses the confidence of the legislature by the defeat of a supply bill or tabling of a confidence motion.
New Brunswick has had 36 individuals serve as government leaders. The province had five individuals as leaders while a colony, and 31 individuals after Canadian Confederation, of which two were from the Confederation Party, 11 from the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick, 15 from the New Brunswick Liberal Association, one from the Anti-Confederation Party, and seven with unofficial party affiliations.

Premiers of New Brunswick

* The New Brunswick practice is to count George E. King as the 2nd and 4th Premier, making Blaine Higgs the 34th Premier.

Living former premiers

As of February 2019, six former premiers are alive, the oldest being Frank McKenna. The most recent former premier to die and the most recently serving premier to die was Ray Frenette, on July 14, 2018.
NameTermDate of birth
Frank McKenna1987–1997
Camille Thériault1998–1999
Bernard Lord1999–2006
Shawn Graham2006–2010
David Alward2010–2014
Brian Gallant2014–2018

Deputy Premier