With this measure, Tim Houston seeks a second majority to continue with his reforms to the provincial health system and address the cost of living crisis in that province of just over a million inhabitants on the Canadian Atlantic coast.
The Progressive Conservative leader went to Lieutenant Governor Arthur LeBlanc’s official residence in downtown Halifax on Sunday to call for the dissolution of the provincial Legislative Assembly.
The last legislative elections took place in a completely different context, that of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his political calculations, Tim Houston believes that the time has come to give voters the opportunity to vote again. People are under clear financial pressure which requires a long-term vision and substantial political investment to help them resolve the problems they have with some politicians and improve their standard of living. he told his militants.
Nova Scotia needs a government with a new mandate to defend the province, otherwise it risks being used as a soccer ball in a federal electionadded Tim Houston, presenting himself as the best provincial leader to oppose the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
For his part, the leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, Zach Churchill, assured that Tim Houston had no valid reason to call an early election. He does it to score points in a fight with the federal governmenthe stated.
The leader of the Nova Scotia Liberals, Zach Churchill, proposes free public transportation as a government measure.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Robert Short
If Tim Houston calls elections, it is not because of the federal government, but because, despite all the money spent, he fails to defend his government’s policiesZach Churchill added.
For her part, the leader of the New Democratic Party, Claudia Chender, maintained that the provincial premier Tim Houston calls elections to gain political advantage at a time when people are losing patience.
Rumors had been spreading for several months.
According to the Fixed Election Date Law, adopted by the Progressive Conservatives when they came to power in 2021, the vote should only take place on July 15, 2025.
However, there was little doubt that an early election would be called in Nova Scotia as, since early summer, Tim Houston began increasing the number of candidate nominations and announcements by his government with an electoral campaign tone.
Justifying his intention, Tim Houston even went so far as to say that It would be quite selfish of you. wait to call an election if he felt the time had come for voters to express themselves at the polls.
In the last two weeks alone, the head of the provincial Conservatives in Nova Scotia announced a one percentage point reduction in the harmonized sales tax, funding until 2026 for ferry service between Yarmouth and the US state of Maine, the start of the protection works of the Chignecto isthmus and the creation of a savings program for doctors’ retirement.
After three months with no news, it was also learned that the list of people waiting to have a family doctor dropped from 160,000 to 145,000 registrations.
Liberals to campaign on cost of living
Zach Churchill’s Liberals intend to campaign on the cost of living issue, promising free public transportation throughout Nova Scotia and a 15% to 13% reduction in the harmonized sales tax.
However, this last promise is partially overshadowed by the commitment of Tim Houston’s Conservative government to reduce the tax to 14% from April 1, 2025.
In campaigning to become leader of his party, Zach Churchill suggested that a Liberal victory was possible after a single Conservative term.
However, the Liberals have faced several obstacles since they ended up forming the opposition in 2021 after having governed the province for eight years.
The Liberals lost the Preston constituency in a by-election. On the other hand, two of its parliamentarians, Brendan Maguire and Fred Tilley, defected and joined the ranks of the Conservatives.
They also received a slap on the wrist from the Auditor General for attempting to cover up a case of embezzlement by a former employee.
Finally, of the 14 outgoing Liberal MPs, five of them, with experience in the provincial legislature, Rafah DiCostanzo, Tony Ince, Keith Irving, Lorelei Nicoll and Kelly Regan, announced that they will not run as candidates seeking re-election.
Nova Scotia New Democratic Party Leader Claudia Chender says her priorities are health, housing and the cost of living.
Photo: Radio-Canada
Neodemocrats will focus on access to housing
For its part, the New Democratic Party of Nova Scotia returns to the fray with the issue of housing, an issue on which it has been tirelessly insisting since the last elections.
Leader Claudia Chender calls for the establishment of a permanent cap on rent increases, instead of the temporary 5% limit in force until the end of 2027.
The main challenge for the New Democrats will be to maintain their gains in the urban centers of Halifax and Cape Breton, while trying to win constituencies in the province’s suburbs and rural regions.
The NPD managed to attract candidates better known to the public in the Halifax suburbs, such as former municipal representative Lisa Blackburn and unionist Paul Wozney.
On the other hand, the neo-democrats will have to do without their former leader, Gary Burrill, who has decided not to seek a new mandate.
Health and cost of living
If the last campaign focused mainly on the issue of health, the 2024 campaign could also end up focusing on the issue of the cost of living. Justin Trudeau’s government in Ottawa and its carbon pollution tax could also find themselves in the crosshairs of provincial parties.
Tim Houston won a longshot in 2021. His campaign focused on the issue of health care, gauging voters’ frustration with staffing shortages, repeated emergency room closures and long response times. ambulances.
During the first two years of his term, the health budget in Nova Scotia increased about $1.2 billion, or 22 per cent. This money was used to expand and renovate hospitals and improve salaries and retention bonuses for certain healthcare workers, in particular.
Despite this, the waiting list to be seen by a doctor has doubled in the last three years. The other parties have not stopped highlighting this situation in recent days.
Conservative Tim Houston’s government was also marked by some conflicts with the electricity provider Nova Scotia Power and with some municipalities. He also received criticism for refusing to enact a coastal protection law that had, however, been unanimously adopted by the Legislative Assembly in 2019.
At the time of the dissolution of the Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly, the Conservatives had 34 of the 55 seats, the Liberals 14 and the New Democrats 6. There was only one independent MP.
An opportunity for opposition parties?
According to Tom Urbaniak, a political scientist at Cape Breton University, these early elections open the door to opposition parties.
They could try to spread the message that Tim Houston’s word can’t be trusted. There is a risk that this issue will overshadow other issues, Urbaniak said. If voters have trouble trusting the outgoing government, this could be risky for the Conservativeshe added.
According to political scientist Yvon Grenier, a professor at St. Francis Xavier University, Houston will have difficulty justifying the fact that it called the election nine months before the scheduled date.
In a way he is violating his own law. Although these laws are not definitive, exceptions can always be found. I really don’t see any reason, and that’s what the opposition parties say.A quote from Yvon Grenier, professor at St. Francis Xavier.
Tim Houston seems to have the wind in his favornoted Yvon Grenier, highlighting that the Progressive Conservative Party won the 2021 elections with less than 2% advantage over the Liberal Party, with 38.4% of the votes, compared to 36.6% for the Liberals, also defeating to the neo-democrats, who obtained almost 21% of the votes.
That victory for the conservatives came after a neo-democratic government and two liberal mandates.
The progress you have is not as important as you think and you should not think that your victory is a fait accomplisaid Yvon Grenier.
During the 2021 summer election campaign, the Progressive Conservatives made health care their top focus.
Tom Urbaniak highlighted that the outgoing administration did not wait for Tim Houston’s visit to the lieutenant governor to begin attacking its adversaries. The Conservatives are already trying to associate Nova Scotia Liberal leader Zach Churchill with Justin Trudeau, the political scientist noted.
It’s not certain voters will see that association or be worried about it, despite the unpopularity of the federal Liberals. In New Brunswick, outgoing Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs tried the same strategy against his Liberal opponent Susan Holt, but it backfired as the Liberals handed the Conservatives a crushing defeat at the polls last year. October 21.
Fuentes: RC / A. Blanc / F. P. Dufault
Adaptation: RCI / R. Valencia
