The interim head of the New Brunswick NDP will stay on as its permanent leader, according to a party news release Friday.
Alex White, who had been serving as interim party leader since June 2022, has been a member for more than 20 years.
Party officials describe him as a “principled, passionate and capable” leader who brought new vigor and leadership to the provincial NDP.
“Despite the politics of division heard regularly, New Brunswickers are all struggling, everything has gotten more expensive, and there is no party truly dedicated to helping to alleviate it,” White said in a media release.
“New Brunswick needs to see that a thriving NDP is the voice to actually advocate for and effect change for them, from Bathurst to St. Stephen, Alma to Edmundston.”
White took on the role of interim leader in June 2022 after internal party dispute forced former leader Mackenzie Thomason to step down.
“It has become very clear to me that the party is not willing or is not able — and I do believe it is more of the former — to support a young union member as the leader of this party, which, in my mind, is troublesome,” Thomason told reporters at the time.
White ran under the party’s banner during the last two provincial elections, representing Saint John East in 2018 and Hampton in 2020.
When he was named interim leader, White said New Brunswick needed “comprehensive and accessible” health care, as well as solutions to the housing and rental crisis.
“Our working people need respect and dignity, the assurance that a better life is not something of the past, but of the future,” he said at the time.
“The New Brunswick NDP is the only truly progressive party that always works to make life better for all.”