Former provincial cabinet minister Jeannot Volpé announced on Monday he's running to represent the Progressive Conservatives in the riding of Madawaska Les Lacs-Edmundston for the upcoming election.
Volpé, the only person who's announced they intend to run for the nomination, is likely to challenge MLA Francine Landry, the Liberal minister of economic development.
Volpé was the former New Brunswick natural resources minister from 1999 to 2003 during the Bernard Lord government and served as Lord's finance minister between 2003 and 2006. Volpé was the interim PC leader in 2007 and 2008 after Lord resignation.
Last February, Volpé said the government should consider a requirement that industrial players like J.D. Irving Ltd. buy a portion of their wood from New Brunswick's forest product marketing boards as a condition for access to trees on Crown land.
In 2013, Volpé also came out criticizing how the David Alward government tackled the province's finances. He was also one of former MLAs who complained to the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission about the retroactive reductions to their pension benefits in 2012, when the Alward government reversed a 2008 decision that boosted the pensions.
When Volpé was leader of the New Brunswick Conservatives in 2007, he said Brunswick News Inc. should be forced to sell off some of its media holdings.
No candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party has yet indicated an intention to succeed Madeleine Dubé in the neighbouring riding of Edmundston-Madawaska Center. Dubé announced her departure from politics in February.