Parties face different challenges, present different narratives as N.S. election kicks off

When Tim Houston stood in the Nova Scotia legislature in 2021 to speak in support of fixed election dates the first piece of legislation he put forward after becoming premier he said it was a way to create predictability for the public, prospective candidates and volunteers.

He said it would also level the playing field for the government and opposition parties.

"We all know that governments sometimes pick a date that they think benefits them," Houston said at the time. "Snap election, high in the polls, whatever the case may be."

Being the government to finally put an end to that and set July 15, 2025, as the next provincial election was "truly an honour," he said.

On Sunday, after a month that saw his government makeno fewer than 37 announcements costing a total of more than $402 million, and at a time when his party is high in the polls, Houston called a snap election.

While the party leaders vying to replace the Progressive Conservatives as government are sure to point to Houston's broken promise and month ofannouncements, Dalhousie University professor Lori Turnbull thinks Houston is far enough into his mandate that it will not be a burning issue for voters.

Turnbull thinks something other than voters punishing Houston for not keeping his word on the election date is more probable.

"I think a more likely outcome could be that voters don't see a huge need for an election right now, so they don't show up," said Turnbull, a professor in the school's faculty of management and department of political science.

Cape Breton University political scientist Tom Urbaniak thinks that if the early election call turns out to be a problem for Houston, it would be in the contextof keeping promises.

"It feeds into a credibility issue," he said.

Targeting broken promises

Liberal and NDP candidates could seize on that or other broken Tory promises, such as the reversal on proclaiming the Coastal Protection Act or not giving the privacy commissioner more powers, or accountability issues such as the way the PC government spent less and less time in the legislature and spent more than a billion dollars a year outside of its own budgets.

But the promise most likely to be scrutinized is the PC pledge from 2021 to fix health care.

During their first mandate, the PCs signed new contracts with doctors, nurses, paramedics and other health-care workers, all in an attempt to attract and retain more people. Changes have been made to try to speed up credentialing, with health-care leaders acknowledging that the fastest way to address staffing shortages in the province is through immigration.

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Thousands more long-term care rooms are planned or under construction and the government pushed hard to increase the use of technology in the health-care system. Many of these details and others are included in a booklet the government mailed to 480,000 addresses just before the election call at a cost of $158,000. The Liberals have filed a complaint with Elections Nova Scotia about the document.

The PCs will point to all the new ways people without a family doctor can access care without having to resort to an emergency department visit, but the Liberals and NDP will point out that twice as many people are without a family practice now as when Houston took office in 2021.

Shovels in the ground but contracts not signed

There is also construction work planned for or happening at hospitals around the province, yet the Tories were unable to finalize a contract for the first phase of the Halifax Infirmary redevelopment before the election call.

There also remains no contract for the sale of a former hotel construction site to long-term care provider Shannex, although the company is well into the work of converting the property to care for patients who no longer need a hospital bed but are still convalescing or awaiting a nursing home placement.

Nova Scotia's auditor general has been critical of both projects for the lack of checks and balances considering the massive amount of public money involved. In the case of the former hotel site, she questioned the purchase of the former hotel project altogether.

Houston has been unmoved, saying speed and action is what the system requires. In the last election he said things would take time to get better, but he was willing to spend whatever it takes to bring about change.

Urbaniak said most voters probably didn't expect health care could be fixed in a single mandate. He said thequestion for them will be whether they believe the changes to date are good enough.

Challenges for Churchill, Chender

The Liberals and NDP face questions of their own.

In her first election at the helm of the NDP, Claudia Chender will try to grow support for a party that has remained in third place and largely stagnant since the defeat of former NDP premier Darrell Dexter in 2013.

Although the party had attempted to set the agendaon issues such as housing and affordability and poverty reduction, they've received no credit for it in the past two elections. Meanwhile, they watched this year as the Tories were the party to finally index income assistance rates to the rate of inflation.

But on housing and health care, in particular, the pitch will be that Houston and his team have fallen woefully short. The NDPhas proposed legislation to try to help ease the housing crisisover the past three years, but little of it has interested the PCs.

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Chender will point to the way the price of rent in Nova Scotia has skyrocketed in the last three years, and the fact that none of the initiatives advanced by the Tories have materially changed that.

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill faces, perhaps, even more challenges.

While it's his first campaign as party leader, Churchill has been an MLA since 2010. He'll be seeking some way this election to reintroduce himself to a public that might already thinkit knows what he's about.

His party will walk atightrope of trying to criticize the Tory record on health care while also having to acknowledge it was in power for eight years before the last election.

Another challenge for the Liberals will be the loss of veteran candidates who have decided to retire, along with two candidates who left the party this year and are now running for the PCs.

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Last week, Houston attempted to neutralize a Liberal platform commitment reducing the HST by two percentage points when he announced the HST would be reduced by one percentage point in April. Nova Scotians need tax relief, he said, but they cannot afford the proposed Liberal cut.

The steepest hill for Churchill to climb, however, is the certainty that Houston and his team will spend this election trying to link the provincial Liberal leader with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the unpopular federal carbon tax.

The Tories never missed an opportunity to make that connection during the past few years. Earlier this month, Houston labelled Churchill a "Trudeau Liberal," while adding that he is not a "Poilievre Conservative."

"I'm not a member of any federal party. I'm a Nova Scotian. I focus on Bluenosers first and foremost and what's best for Nova Scotians."

Urbaniak said it's a safe bet the public will hear plenty about the federal Liberal government between now and Nov. 26. Hespeculated that the most likely reason for Houston to go to the polls early is that he doesn't want to miss an opportunity to have an election while the low-polling Trudeau is still prime minister.

"The Liberal brand generally is hurting right now and so that does have a spillover effect to the provincial Liberals, and the PCs are going to try to amplify that as much as they can."

Houston didn't exactly shy away from this suggestion last week when he was asked about the possibility of an early election.

"There is incredible turmoil in Ottawa right now," he told reporters.

How the leaders frame the ballot question

In Houston's view, the federal government is shortchanging the province on funding for upgrades to the Chignecto Isthmus and harming Nova Scotians through a lack of enforcement on illegal fishing and the imposition of a consumer price on carbon.

"We need to make sure that we do whatever we can to put Nova Scotia in the best position to bargain and to be respected, and I think that's been difficult."

Churchill didn't have much time for that rationale while talking to reporters last week.

"That's BS," he said.

"[Houston] does have a strong mandate he's got a majority government. And he is going to try and trick people in this province into believing that this election is going to change any outcomes in Ottawa. It's not."

During the Tories' first mandate, Nova Scotia became one of the most expensive places to live in Canada, he said, and issues like the housing crisis are not getting better.

Chender agreed, saying Houston's majority government gave him more than enough clout to negotiate with Ottawa.

"Although he doesn't like to negotiate," she said. "He likes to fight."

Chender said that when people go to cast their ballot, they'll be looking at the PC record and see a party and leader looking to distract from the shortcomings of their first term in government.

"We welcome the chance to have that conversation on the doorsteps and in any venue that we can because this election is going to be about health, it's going to be about housing and it's going to be about the cost of living."