Parties & Leaders

Allison Brewer

MLA Fredericton-Lincoln     [ New Brunswick NDP ]

New Democratic Party Leader Allison Brewer is on the outside looking in.

The rookie politician is leading a party without a seat, running an election campaign for the first time in her life and trying to advance her party's political agenda across the province while proving herself to voters in her own riding of Fredericton-Lincoln.

It's a challenge, but that's nothing new for Brewer. She has spent a lifetime working for social change on behalf of women and minorities in the province and Canada's Far North.

Brewer, 51, believes her advocacy skills will help build the party into a political force New Brunswickers can get behind.

"Political parties are community development. My job is working with activists within their communities and bringing them together and getting us all working in the same direction on things."

New Democratic Party
Term	Leader
1970-1971	J. Albert Richardson
1971	Pat Callaghan (Waffle)
1971-1974	J. Albert Richardson
1974-1980	John LaBossiere
1980-1988	George Little
1988-2005	Elizabeth Weir
2005-	Allison Brewer
Source: Nodice.ca - New Brunswick Election 2006

Brewer was elected party leader in September 2005. She took over the job from 17-year veteran Elizabeth Weir, who left the political limelight a month later, resigning her party's only seat in the legislature.

Weir was a dynamic and charismatic politician. The party relied on her powerful personality to advance its social policy agenda in the legislature. Brewer is taking a different approach, trying to build grassroots support through consultation and consensus.

"The challenge is to keep sounding like myself," she said. "Elizabeth and I have two completely different styles. Her background is law and she's very good at the legislative side of things.

"My background is communications and the community development side of things. Those are the strengths I want to bring to the organization."

Brewer is a tenacious social activist whose human rights work in Atlantic Canada and the North was recognized with a Governer General's Award in 2005.

She may be best known in New Brunswick for setting up and running the Fredericton Morgentaler Clinic in the mid-1990s, but she has also worked on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities and the gay and lesbian community.

In 1998, she took on and won a battle with Fredericton Mayor Brad Woodside over the city's refusal to proclaim Gay Pride Weekend.

In 2000, Brewer left Fredericton for Iqaluit to work as communications advisor to the fledgling Nunavut government's Department of Health and Social Services. Four years later, she was senior advisor to the Nunavut government on advocacy issues including women, elders and people with disabilities.

Brewer returned to Fredericton in 2004 to be close to her family, including her three children, Oliver, Anna and Will, who all live and study in the capital.

As NDP leader, Brewer hopes to convince New Brunswickers that the Tories and the Liberals are cut from the same ideological cloth - and electing NDP members is the only way to ensure social programs are maintained.

In the meantime, she's pledging to push the government on issues such as more care for seniors, changes to energy programs and public auto insurance.

"I'm just hoping that New Brunswickers see that there is a void [in the legislature] and we really need a three-party system," she said. "It's kind of a cliché now, that the Liberals campaign from the left and govern from the right.

"So if the Liberals go into power, we're not going to see any changes from what we have now, and we need a real strong NDP voice in there to balance that."

The CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites. External links will open in a new window.