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The New Brunswick Legislative Building is the current building that houses the Assembly. It opened in 1882 , having been constructed by J.C. Dumaresq , following the destruction of the original building, known as Province Hall, by fire in 1880 . It is a Victorian building with a 41 metre wide dome. The legislative chamber is designed to have four rows on the government side and two rows on the opposition side. This is because elections have traditionally yielded a strong Government Majority ; in fact on occasion, even with 2/3s of the seats on one side of the House, the government has spilled over to the opposition side. Only two elections — 1978 and 2003 — have required the House to be reoriented to three rows on either side which results in very cramped opposition benches. MEMBERS The current members were elected in the 55th General Election held on June 9 2003 except for Victor Boudreau who was elected in a By-election on October 4 2004 and Ed Doherty who was elected in a by-election on November 14 2005 . The standings were changed further on January 13 2006 , when Frank Branch left the Liberal Caucus to sit as an Independent , and n February 17 2006 , when then Progressive Conservative MLA Michael Malley Crossed The Floor to sit as an independent thus putting Bernard Lord 's government into a Minority situation. Malley, while serving as speaker, changed his affiliation back to Progressive Conservative on April 13 2006 . Some controversy arose following this as following the 2003 election, the House unanimously passed a motion requiring the Opposition Liberals to Pair a member with the speaker during meetings of Committees Of The Whole in order to ''maintain the government majority'' in such situations. The Opposition argued that there was no precedent for a speaker to cross the floor and therefore, they did not recognize that a majority government existed and would not honour this motion under the circumstances. Bold denotes a member of the Cabinet . ''Italics'' denotes a party leader † denotes the Speaker PARTY STANDINGS
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