Article content

On Monday night, New Brunswick elected a premier so young that he was still in diapers when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau resigned.

If this were British Columbia, Liberal leader Brian Gallant would be the youngest premier since a 1905 political scandal pushed a political rookie into the top spot. In neighbouring Quebec, Mr. Gallant would be the youngest leader since colonial times.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or New Brunswick, with one of Canada's oldest populations, has an odd penchant for electing the youngest premiers Back to video

But this is New Brunswick, a province that has one of Canada’s oldest populations, but has a bizarre penchant for electing the country’s youngest leaders. When Mr. Gallant is sworn in, he will only become the fifth under-40 premier to take the reigns of power since the 1950s.

When Liberal Frank McKenna famously secured every single seat in the New Brunswick legislature in 1987, he was only 39. His scandal-plagued predecessor, Progressive Conservative Richard Hatfield, had come to power 17 years before also at the age of 39.