The New Brunswick CCF retired from the scene to give way to the New Democratic Party (NDP), which was founded in 1961 as a Canadian social- democratic party with strong ties to organized labour, especially the Canadian Labour Congress, which was instrumental in founding the new party. At the provincial level, the New Brunswick NDP was organized in December 1962. Prospects were not good during the 1960s, however, as the province's new Liberal premier, Louis J. Robichaud, was a left-of-centre populist politician who won three successive provincial elections and introduced significant social reforms. The New Brunswick NDP did not run candidates in the 1963 provincial election and ran only three candidates in the 1967 provincial election.