PCs, Liberals are only parties to run full slate of election candidates

The Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties are the only two political parties fielding a full slate of candidates in New Brunswick's Oct. 21 election.

They each have 49 candidates, according to the official list published by Elections New Brunswick after Tuesday's deadline for registering candidates.

The Green Party, the only other party with MLAs in the legislature when the election was called, fell short. The party has 46 candidates.

The three ridings with no Green candidate are Hautes-Terres-Nepisiguit, Caraquet and Edmundston-Valle-des-Rivires.

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Two other parties that have elected members in the past the People's Alliance and the New Brunswick New Democratic Party have fewer candidates than in the last election in 2020.

The NDP has 23 candidates, down from 33 four years ago. The Alliance has 13, down from 36 in 2020.

The newly created Libertarian Party, with 18, is running more candidates than the Alliance, including leader Keith Tays in Fundy-The Isles-Saint John Lorneville.

But two other parties created in the lead-up to this election have fallen short of the minimum threshold of 10 candidates required to maintain their registered status.

The Consensus Party of New Brunswick is running three candidates, including leader Lenny O'Brien in Beausoleil-Grand-Bouctouche-Kent.

And the Social Justice Party of New Brunswick has only two candidates. Leader and founder Tanya Roberts, who predicted to CBC News last month that her party would win the election, is not among them.

New Brunswick's chief electoral officer is required by law to cancel the registrations of parties that field fewer than 10 candidates, making them ineligible for per-vote public funding over the next four years.

The law gives a party "a reasonable opportunity to be heard" before a final decision, so the cancellation "cannot take place" before election day on Oct. 21, according to Elections New Brunswick.

That means the Consensus Party and Social Justice Party candidates will be listed with the party names on election ballots.