Your View

A little man with little ideas and a small minded approach to government.

A man whose idea of duty was to toady up and beg for scraps from the federal table. A man whose government set out to neuter NB as a choice for business and industry.

A man who thought of himself and his cronies with no regard for those who elected him. Basically a disgrace

A politician needs to have some charisma, to my way of thinking Mr Lord had none.

Where was his passion for this province. Putting him along side Danny Williams for example would be like putting kool aid along side a cold beer. He could have used a little sizzle.

The portrayal of Mr. Lord as an arrogant, selfish and partisan individual is a view that he does not merit. All too often, citizens are too hasty to judge a politician making what he considers to be the best decision.

Just as a doctor can make a mistake, so can a politician. Mr. Lord is certainly a politician who has made mistakes, and no doubt he recognizes this as well, but he has also given this province his all. To assume that he is a vengeful person is simply ignorant. What has he to gain from this? How do people expect him to be vengeful of numbers? He doesn't even know the majority of people in ridings.

I've had the pleasure to meet Mr. Lord, and he was a well-spoken and well-educated leader that represented New-Brunswick without fear, but with pride. Though certainly not a revolutionary Premier, his stable legacy is one of taking hard decisions that had to be made. A Premier must always seek the greater good for his province, not the good of individual communities and people.

Mr. Lord, thank you for serving this province well and staying true to your convictions and reasoning in hard times. Your time as premier was one of relative strife, and I'm proud that you served New-Brunswick. Happy times to you and your family, and I hope that someday, perhaps you'll serve New-Brunswick and Canada again.

I think Mr. Lord will be forgotten rather quickly now that he has chosen to abandon the people who elected him a short time ago.

His tenure as Premier was un-inspiring at best. When first elected I was hopeful that a younger Premier would make some good decisions and get the province moving again. Indecision and back-peddling seemed to be his governing of choice.

His idea of a transparent gvt was a joke, truely a shame. He'll be forgotten as a boring Premier that had alot of potential in my opinion.

Good luck Premier Graham, may you prove yourself as a more inspiring leader for our beautiful province.

As a politically active and socially concious individual who lived in New Brunswick from birth until Fall of 2005 (and hopes to one day return), I can honestly say that Bernard Lord did the best job he could with the resources he had available to him. Anyone who thinks the Premier can control the turn of the economy (Mr. Gandy, your comments are downright ridiculous--the Premier must have a business degree?? That's absurd!) is living in a dream world.

Any educated economist knows that any free-market economy can only be steered by putting pressure in different places, but never controlled. Mr. Lord deserves our respect for doing the best job he could for seven years and doing a damn fine job of it as well. I have never voted Conservative in my life, nor am I likely to, but my family has close ties to the PC party of New Brunswick and I think this particular topic should raise some very interesting conversation over the Holidays!

I think Bernard Lord will be remembered as a decent, but not superb, premier. He certainly kept his promises, and made some tough decisions regarding health care cuts that, while unpopular, were necessary for sustainability. I don't think Lord had an "anti-rural" bias; you can't blame him for economic problems that have existed for decades. However, Lord seemed to lose his spark in his later years as premier, and rather than ambitiously looking for solutions like he did in his earlier years, he appeared to become content with - or complacent about - the status quo.

As an aside: whoever said Hatfield was NB's worst premier is seeing history thorugh partisan-tinted goggles.

Although the youngest premier in his time, Bernard Lord perhaps lacked maturity in responsibility and long term vision. he surrounded himself with good individuals to cover his lack of experience, but in the end He caused more tension than certainty.

He also goes down as I can recall the HIGHEST paid premier of Canada getting 2 salaries. He certainly looked after himself.
His legacy of being fluent in English and French is certainly something to be proud of, but look at the fall out. The Orimulsion Disaster, The Health Cuts, Insurance, Minimum wage and the secrecy that was promoted.

The question is; Once he had access to the power of being a Premier, Who controlled who was it him or was it the title? Elvy Robichaud stepping down as minster of health and wellness probably knew what was to come especially when The party decided to rob Peter to pay Paul ( Cutting health budgets to pay for vaccinations). The flip flop of the speaker of the house certainly was a drama showing his inability to not only run his party but actually run the province. We are paying for his and his friends actions errors and ego and we will continue to pay while he settles back into so called private life and become part of the community. Was it really worth it to have him as part of the History of New Brunswick?

Bernard Lord made the choice in New Brunswick that the Liberal's did not have the stomach for.

He did an excellent job, even though many of the Liberal's on this site are crying up a storm. Lets not forget that the PC party won the popular vote so clearly many folks in New Brunswick opted for the better man.

But of course the system rewarded Mr. Graham and I have no doubt as per usual in four years or so the voters of New Brunswick will crawl back to the PC party to clean up yet another Liberal Mess.

Lord would not have retired had he won, but New Brunswicks loss will be Ottawa's gain in the long term

More folks voted PC in the last NB election the Liberals so its very clear he is a popular figure who will at some point be a popular MP.

Health Care Reforms were the right thing to do. They weren't popular but it was the right thing to do.

Refurbishment of Point Lepreau, International Power Line. (Set in motion an opportunity for NB to become an electricity export super power)

No Tolls. (Bad Idea, but people hate tolls)

Saying no to gun control.

Standing up for NB.

Some cynical and down right rude comments on here. Some decision doesn't go your way, so attack someone verbally over it. Most of you.... I'm sure in a face-to-face situation wouldn't be so utterly rude.

Whether you like Bernard Lord or not, being Premier is a hard and thankless job (reading some of the comments shows this...). Mr. Lord deserves your RESPECT.

It's sad for those who don't know how to give a level headed response. In politics, you can never please everyone.... you can never make a decision that someone... somewhere, will question if it was the right decision. What I will say about Bernard Lord is that he has excellent morals, the love he shows for his family and parenting and love of his province is something I don't think we see enough of in politicians sometimes. Stephen Harper could learn from Bernard Lord in this area.

Best Wishes Mr. Lord! And, good luck Shawn Graham... While being a leader can be very rewarding, I'm sure you will be criticized just as much in the future by people who don't really understand how difficult being a politician really is.

I believe Mr. Lord will be remembered as a good Premier. I think he was, as I do for Mr. McKenna, and Mr. Graham seems to be off to a good start.

Lord would be known as somebody who through his arrogance and inexperince tried to destroy the rural health care facilities.
In addition, he started an era of corruption and cronyism.
good bye mr. Lord and good riddance.

Frank Mckenna didnt get it done, Bernard Lord made a mess.
The only reason Mr Lord was elected Premier in the first place was because he promised to take the tolls off a highway in which the liberals built and mismanaged.That cost New Brunswickers millions.
Bernard Lord did not look after our finances or our health care system, nor did Frank Mckenna for that matter. New Brunswick is in a financial mess and a health care crisis and it didnt get that way overnight, and with Lord's Orimulsion Disaster we will be deeper in debt for many years to come
What do Bernard Lord, Shawn Graham and Frank Mckenna have in common ? They have zero to little business experience, I hardly think that qualifies someone to take New Brunswick's top job.
We will pay for Bernard Lords mess for years.
In order to become premier of New Brunswick, it should be law that you have a business degree and at least 20 years of experience in the business world, then perhaps New Brunswick would prosper.

Bernard Lord leaves a legacy of pettiness, mismanagement, accounting irregularities and of utter disdain for the average New Brunswicker. He will no doubt go down in history as one of NB's worst Premiers, second only to Richard Hatfield.

Conservative should now be very worried, they do not have a bilingual viable candidate for the job. The talk of Jody Carr is just silly, he has little experience as a minister and is far from bilingual.

Mr Lord has left a poor legacy of dealing with Aboriginal title issues. Courts seem to deal with these issues; agreements seem increasingly unsatisfactory; the imaginary Ganong Line delineates hunting territories; and, it will be only a matter of time before the issue overheats (again).

Goodbye Mr. Lord. Your indecisiveness will not be missed.

Hopefully, if you endeavour to explore federal politics you will bring your ineptitude with you. Your kindred spirit, Stephen Harper, will no doubt welcome you with open arms.

When he eliminated the tolls, he had to cut a lot of provincial jobs, site offices. I went to his tour stop in montreal to encourage ex-pats to return to the province.

For what? call center jobs. While he did good for Moncton, the rest of the province suffered.

When Mr. Lord was first elected, I thought it was refresshing to see a politician make a list of promisses, and in the first 160 days or so, check off every single one that he completed as prommissed.

Not like some of the other parties who make all kinds of promisses, and then say " I never said we would do that" Secondly, I think Mr. Lord, instead of just complaining about the health system problems and pointing the finger at the Federal government, he, as one of the only premiers in the country started a plan as layed out in the romineau report to "fix" heath care ( as if it could be fixed after 10 years of federal Liberal cuts in the 90's)

But none the less, I feel Mr. Lords legacy will be one of Honesty for fullfilling his promises, and one of a good leader for taking initiative for applying the recommendation of the romineau report.

It is disappointing to see Mr. Lord leave under these circumstances. It is increasingly difficult for us "ordinary" folks to respect politicians who are only willing to "serve" when they are in charge and can indulge their careerist and personal agendas.

Mr. Lord, with his wide experience, could have continued to serve the people of Moncton exceptionally well indeed. After all, isn't that what he offered himself to do when he so recently ran for election? Instead, because he couldn't be boss, he quit.

That's typical of our establishment figures these days. I'm sick of them. We need to turn them on their ear. We need 20 years of no Liberals and no "Conservatives" (same thing really)anywhere in Canada, in order that we can pursue a differnt direction in the country.

Until we learn that lesson, all we'll get is more Bernard Lords quitting when they don't get their way, and a country continuing a slow drift to nowhere.

Bernard Lord was an excellent Premier for New Brunswick. He led them through some hard times when he first came to power, and he erased the deficit for future generations, he removed tolls from your roads and more.

I'm a little worried to watch and see how Shawn Graham manages to balance the budget with all he has done in the little time he has been there. Don't get me wrong, its great to see your gas taxes come down, lower your auto insurance rates, etc, etc. but there is a cost involved.

Bernard Lord proved to be a steady hand. Politicians know that people will beat them down on so many different situations (i.e. political affliation, unpopular decisions, retiring after a loss, and the list goes on.)

Bernard Lord is no different to face this. To say Bernard Lord was in politics for personal gain is very wrong. If you listened to him, you know he "leaves" for personal gain, actually.... more time with his wife and children. And there is nothing wrong with that.

A politician that doesn't win, should always consider if it is right to stay on. In this case, I wish he would have, but, rather then belittle a politician, I think he deserves at least New Brunswick's respect, as he certainly has Nova Scotia's.

Your province has had a great list of recent premiers. Frank McKenna and Bernard Lord were excellent statesmen and leaders, and I even think Shawn Graham (may) be one as well, but more time is needed obviously on that verdict.

I have never been more proud to be a New Brunswicker then what i was while Bernard Lord was the premier. He got things done, got alot of debt paid off, helped the non profit in this area, and seemed very enthusiastic.

He was a politician that made you feel like he really cared, and an all around nice man. People may not know what his legacy is at this time, or realise he did alot of good for this province, however... in the next few years, as the Graham Liberals "undo" everything that has been done, and we rollback to a 1990's style government, i think people will realise it was his goverment that moved us ahead in so many ways.

Bernard Lord's departure is a great day for rural New Brunswick, who suffered greatly under his leadership.

He treated my own hometown of Perth-Andover with contempt and tried to punish ridings that did not vote for him. His arrogant attitude will not be missed.

If Mr. Lord enters federal politics, I hope he leaves some of his past NEP-esque views on forcing NS and NL to give his province a first stab at buying oil and gas exactly where they are now -- in the past and labelled as a mistake. Premiers Williams and Hamm were correct to oppose his poorly named and anti-market "Canada First" proposal.

Beyond that though, I hope Mr. Lord does stay in federal politics in some role. He would make an excellent MP and an excellent federal cabinet minister (probably better suited to a portfolio such as transportation, public works, or labour).

From what I can tell, even in the last NB election, he seemed to make more sense than his NDP and Liberal opponents. He is also a superb communicator.

The legacy is that country roads were closed, services were reduced, the cost of living got higher, jobs were lost and people moved away.

Nobody really wants to move away from here.
New Brunswick is a beautiful place that shares an amazing triple-cultural heritage.

Premier Graham is getting on with repairs as scheduled and New Brunswickers can already see the improvements. We are not so angry with Bernie anymore and wish him all the best success in his future plans!

He did nothing for the Miramichi are and created job loss. The health services in the area leave a lot to be desired. He should never run for a political office again.

If nothing else, this proves another politician was only in politics for personal gain and not for the good of the people he represents.

Does anyone think Lord would have retired if he had won the last election?