Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
FREDERICTON — Hundreds of candidates in New Brunswick have formally kicked off campaigns for local governments, education boards and rural advisory committees.
Many of the Atlantic province’s largest cities will have competitive contests while more than 150 local seats will be filled by acclamation and some seats will be without any candidate.
Those elected in the May 11 election will make up the second cohort since New Brunswick overhauled its local governance system over three years ago.
Craig Pollett, Atlantic vice-president of Strategic Steps Inc., says he’s watching to see if elections will be focused on changes to the the governance system itself or community priorities.
“Are we still seeing candidates come forward primarily because they opposed reform?” Pollet said in a Saturday interview.
“Or primarily because they want to improve their community and they see this as a real way to do that?”
New Brunswick, starting in 2023, consolidated 340 local entities into 77 governments and 12 new rural districts, expanding local representation to the entire province.
The province also granted regional commissions responsibility for economic development, tourism, infrastructure cost-sharing, transportation and other strategic planning.
Pollett said candidate and voter turnout in this election will determine if the province’s goal of more democratic engagement was a success.
“If you want stronger local governments, you want more people involved, more people voting, more people running, that sort of thing,” he said.
“So in this case, if we end up with the opposite, then that’s a commentary on — not necessarily the reform itself — but maybe how it happened, how it was implemented.”
Elections New Brunswick reported that 1,102 people submitted nomination papers for 588 council positions within its 77 local governments.
Contests in Fredericton, Saint John and Moncton — the province’s three largest cities — will be among the 52 mayoral races this year. Another 25 candidates for mayor will be acclaimed.
Elections will determine who fills 211 councillor seats across New Brunswick while a further 136 positions had uncontested candidates.
Two council positions across as many communities will remain vacant and will require byelections in the fall to fill the seats, according to Elections New Brunswick.
Contests will be required in only five of the dozen rural district advisory committees, according to the elections agency. Twenty-six spots were filled by acclamation and four remained without a candidate.
Interest in education governance appears low this year. Overall, only 63 candidates filed nomination papers for New Brunswick’s 68 district education council slots.
While there will be 11 contests for positions that had more than one candidate, Elections New Brunswick said 18 positions were vacant after the nomination window closed.
Empty seats on rural district advisory committees and education councils will be filled by people appointed by the province.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2026.
Eli Ridder, The Canadian Press
