Former Tory cabinet minister Jeannot Volp announces return to politics

Former provincial cabinet ministerJeannot Volp announced onMonday he's running torepresent the Progressive Conservatives in the riding ofMadawaskaLesLacs-Edmundstonfor the upcoming election.

Volp, the only person who's announced they intend to run for the nomination, is likely to challengeMLA Francine Landry, the Liberal minister of economic development.

Volp 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. Volp was the interimPCleader in 2007 and 2008afterLord resignation.

Last February, Volp 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, Volp 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 Volp 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 Dub in the neighbouring riding of Edmundston-Madawaska Center. Dub announced her departure from politics in February.