Madeleine Dub, the PC party's only francophone MLA, retiring from politics

Longtime Progressive Conservative MLA Madeleine Dub, the party's only elected member in francophone New Brunswick, is leaving politics.

Dub announced Wednesday she will not run for re-election in Edmundston-Madawaska Centre in the Sept. 24 election. She said she was retiring "with a sense of accomplishment."

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Dubwas first elected in 1999 as part of Bernard Lord's PC landslide victory and held several cabinet posts, including education, family and community services, health, and social development.

"You were a great MLA and minister," PC Leader Blaine Higgs tweeted to her Wednesday. "We will miss you."

PCs in trouble

Dub's departure presents a challenge for Higgs, who is trying to learn French and is trying to make his party appealing to francophones in the north.

Dub won the old riding of Edmundston-Saint Basile with a crushing majority in 2010, taking more than 75 per cent of the vote the second-best showing of any PC candidate in the province.

But in 2014, with the Liberals surging in the north, she won the redrawn riding of Edmundston-Madawaska Centre with 48 per cent, beating her Liberal opponent by just 243 votes.

That election saw the PCs lose all their other ridings in the francophone north.