Tim Houston has called a snap election to be held Nov. 26.
The Progressive Conservative leader is trying to win a second term, despite legislation he personally introduced three years ago that gave Nova Scotia a fixed election date of July 15, 2025.
Houston visited the lieutenant-governor Sunday to dissolve the current House.
Breaking from tradition, he did not take questions from reporters as he left the lieutenant-governor’s residence. Houston then entered a blue bus with the message “Vote PC” on it. Houston is holding a rally in Bedford at 1:30 p.m. AT.
The decision to call an early election was criticized by NDP Leader Claudia Chender.
“Nova Scotians continue to experience a failing health-care system, unsustainable housing prices, and the rapidly rising cost of living — but instead of addressing these issues for the people they were elected to serve, the Houston government is focused on trying to hold onto power,” she said in a statement.
The NDP is launching its campaign in Dartmouth at an event at 3 p.m.
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill criticized Houston’s decision to call an early election, as well as a 21-page brochure the PCs sent out to Nova Scotians highlighting the party’s work on health care.
“Tim Houston cannot be allowed to continue to spend Nova Scotians’ hard-earned money on his partisan playbook,” Churchill said at a Liberal event.
“It certainly shows a lack of respect for voters, for taxpayers, and I do think it shows that he will do unethical things as long as he thinks he can get away with it.”
Earlier Sunday, the party filed a complaint with the province’s chief electoral officer over the brochure.
Green Party Leader Anthony Edmonds said he was disappointed Houston broke his promise of a fixed election date.
“Elections Nova Scotia has reported that an early election call will increase their costs,” he wrote in an email to CBC News. “I fear that a snap election will see many voters stay home, which is disheartening in this era of record low turnouts at the polls.”
Early election call could be issue, says political scientist
Cape Breton University political scientist Tom Urbaniak expects the early election call to dominate the debate during the first few days of the campaign but suggested it may lose ground to other issues.
But Urbaniak warned it could linger as an issue, if the opposition parties are able to make the case Nova Scotians cannot rely on Houston to keep his word.
“There is a chance that this question can seep into other discussions,” he said. “If voters are having a tough time trusting the incumbent government, that becomes part of the narrative.
“It feeds into a credibility issue. If that starts to dominate the discussion then … the broken promise around Bill 1 [setting July 15, 2025, as the fixed election date] will become part of the larger conversation.”
When Houston spoke on Oct. 14, 2021, during the House debate about a fixed election date, he said it would ensure fairness by not allowing the governing party to call elections at times that would be beneficial for them.
“Nova Scotians want to have confidence in their electoral system,” he said. “Parties in opposition want a level playing field, and Elections Nova Scotia, Mr. Speaker, they want to be able to prepare as effectively and efficiently as they possibly can for general elections.”
The PCs go into this campaign having held 34 seats, three more than the party won in the 2021 general election. That’s because of byelection wins and two defections from the Liberal ranks.
The Liberals held 14 seats at dissolution, the NDP had six and there was one independent.
Changes already
Five PCs are not re-offering, including Allan MacMaster, who was finance minister and deputy premier.
There are also four Liberals and a New Democrat not re-offering. Two former Liberal MLAs — Brendan Maguire and Fred Tilley — are now running as PC candidates.
In anticipation of an election call, Elections Nova Scotia has shipped campaign supplies to all 55 electoral districts. Nova Scotians who want to cast their ballots early will, for the first time, be able to vote electronically at early voting sites.
Unlike the most recent municipal election where voters in many municipalities were able to cast their ballots on a secure internet site, e-voting will happen on tablets at returning offices across the province. That will allow for those results to be counted and reported on just after the polls close on voting day.
In the 2021 election, those 176,793 early votes were on paper ballots that had to be counted by hand. In some constituencies that made the manual count a two-day process.
In all, 421,001 Nova Scotians voted in the last election, 42 per cent of them before the Aug. 17 election day.
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