Voting patterns are changing — slowly — in New Brunswick. Here's why

Voting the way your parents and grandparents did is a habit that has endured through decades of provincial and federal elections in some New Brunswick communities, but this could be fading, according to a political scientist.

With boundaries redrawn for some ridings because of population changes and the large number of newcomers to the province who bring their own political views, Mario Levesque said legacy voting is no longer a sure thing.

But the change won't happen overnight.

"This shift is going to take a long time to continually change," said Levesque, a professor of politics and public policy at Mount Allison University in Sackville.

"So you have technology and connections, and our work patterns can change and take us outside of our riding and outside of our communities and expose us to newer ideas and newer ways of doing things. … That's a long-term process."

Lily Marrow will vote for the first time in a federal election when she casts a ballot April 28.

The NBCC student from Moncton said her parents used to influence her political views. That is, until she learned more on her own.

"If influence is anywhere, it's probably me influencing my family," the 20-year-old said. "I'm pretty strong-minded in what I know."

In Adrienne LeBlanc's case, her father voted for the same party his entire life. As with many families in rural communities in the longtime Liberal riding of Beauséjour — formerly Westmorland-Kent — it was understood she would wave the same party flag.

"I think that is the way we were brought up — to follow our parents," said LeBlanc, who lives in Cocagne, in the Beauséjour riding.

Levesque said this riding, which spans the southern part of the Acadian coastline, is likely to remain Liberal because most of the community cares about something Liberals have long defended: French-language rights.

For context, Levesque goes back to the Manitoba schools question, a political crisis that saw a series of laws abolish the teaching of French in schools in the late 1800s. It brought into question the rights of the linguistic minority into the next century.

Levesque said the Conservative-led move made lasting waves all the way to the East Coast.

"The Conservative prime ministers at the time were not willing to go and protect the francophone language outside of Quebec," Levesque said.