Governing parties may call early elections for a variety of reasons. These could include seeking a stronger mandate, receiving assurance from the electorate ahead of a major change, or the sense that popular support has peaked. For Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative (PC) Premier Tim Houston, the third reason seems most likely.
“He’s probably decided, heck, this is a good time to go to the polls,” Donald Savoie, the Canada Research Chair in governance at the University of Moncton, told The Epoch Times. One major factor is how the federal Liberal and Conservative parties are currently performing, he added.
In neighbouring New Brunswick, the Progressive Conservatives lost power on Oct. 21 to Susan Holt’s Liberal party. Savoie said candidates from both parties told him opposition to the Trudeau Liberals was a factor at the doors during the campaign.
“I’ve talked to candidates on both sides, and when they knocked on doors, that came up quite often. I don’t think it was an accident that Susan Holt insisted on labelling [her] team the Holt team, not the Liberal team.” The federal Liberals are currently trailing the federal Conservatives by around 20 points in national polls.
Savoie predicts Houston has a better chance of victory in Nova Scotia than former New Brunswick PC Premier Higgs did, partly because Houston is only seeking a second mandate, not a third as Higgs was.
“There’s a tendency in the Maritime provinces that we don’t tend to turf out a government after one mandate, and that plays to the current premier’s strength,” Savoie said.
Houston will vie for the popular vote against Liberal Leader Zach Churchill and Claudia Chender of the NDP, each of whom took the reins of their respective parties in 2022.
In making the election call, Houston told reporters the province needs a “fresh mandate” and that waiting until July would have left his province “a political football in a federal election that could be held simultaneously with the current scheduled fixed election date.”
Aurora Strategy Group principal Chris Collins, a former MLA and speaker of the New Brunswick legislature, told The Epoch Times that the election call is all about political advantage.
“Polling is high, that’s why he’s going,” Collins said. “It’s not about issues, it’s not about getting a mandate. It’s about taking advantage of the timing. It’s not a stupid move, it really isn’t.”
“The Liberals and the NDP are going to cannibalize each others’ votes in a lot of ridings, because they’re both strong,” Collins predicted.
Collins said in the event that there’s an early federal election next spring, following that with a provincial election in July would leave Nova Scotians with “voter fatigue” that would have been to the PCs’ detriment. Another possibility is that the public might sour on Conservative sentiment after several more months of anti-Trudeau attacks by federal Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre, he said.
The Issues
Political precedent and recent history suggest a key topic will be health care, which is “having some issues,” said Savoie.“Health care seems to be part of any incumbent government that tries to get another mandate,” he said.
Collins said Houston’s record on the issue has both upsides and downsides.
“He’s added 300 new doctors, which is a very big success, and he’s reduced the amount of people looking for a doctor from 160,000 to 145,000,” he said. “Where the risk is, is that in 2022, just before he took over, there were only 100,000 people on the waiting list.”
Discussion on roads tends to emerge in Nova Scotia and Maritime elections, he said, but it’s not clear who has the advantage on that issue in 2024.
On affordability, the Liberals have been advocating for free public transit and a 2 percent reduction in the 15 percent HST. The NDP wants to introduce more rent control and provide tax credits for low- and middle-income renters. The PCs have promised to lower the HST by 1 percent, and have introduced a school lunch program.
