Lone N.S. Tory to win federal seat says party could have responded faster to Trump turmoil

The only Nova Scotia Conservative to win a seat in the federal election says tariffs, Donald Trump and the collapse of the NDP vote led to losses for his party in his home province.

Chris d'Entremont, who will again represent Acadie-Annapolis in Ottawa, told CBC's As It Happens on Tuesday that the Conservative Party could have had a quicker response to concerns about the U.S. president as "it was really on the minds of electors as we were going door to door."

He also said an earlier visit from party leader Pierre Poilievre also could have made a difference.

"They were voting for change," d'Entremont said. "I just don't think there was an agreement on what that change actually was."

He said he and Liberal candidate Ronnie LeBlanc "pretty much split the vote up the middle."

Conservative incumbents Rick Perkins in South Shore-St Margarets and Stephen Ellis in Cumberland-Colchester both lost their seats to Liberals.

D'Entremont, who has kept his federal riding blue for the last three elections and was previously a Progressive Conservative MLA, said issues in the fishery are what won his riding for him.

LISTEN | As It Happens full interview with Chris d'Entremont:

As It Happens6:49The only N.S. Conservative elected wishes Pierre Poilievre visited sooner

Chris d'Entremont holds the only Conservative seat in Nova Scotia after winning the riding of Acadie-Annapolis. He told As It Happens host Nil Köksal the party could have benefited from "better, easier messaging" on the trade war, and an earlier provincial visit from the Conservative leader.

"That far and beyond is the No. 1 issue," he said. 

Jack Wright, one of d'Entremont's constituents, told CBC News that d'Entremont represents his riding well.

"Even though he's not in government, he still does his best," Wright said. "He's concerned about the fishery, which is very important here."

D'Entremont said the provincial Progressive Conservatives and the federal Conservatives would be wise to move closer together.

"There just seems to be always that question of whether we're actually the same kind of Conservative," d'Entremont said.

"We're a bigger tent sometimes than what maybe some of the other mainstream parties are — but we all have the same issues at heart and I think we should be working much closer together."

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said he would not campaign for the federal Conservative or Liberal leader. Last November, Houston said there was "no federal equivalent" of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party. 

Meredith Ralston, behind the 1997 documentary Why Women Run — which followed the political race in Halifax between Alexa McDonough and Mary Clancy — told CBC's Maritime Noon on Tuesday she is not surprised by election results in the Maritimes.

She said Houston and Ontario's Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford not publicly supporting Poilievre's campaign highlights the split within the Conservative movement.

"And I think that the Progressive Conservatives see themselves as a kinder, gentler kind of Tory and so don't support all the different, what some people kind of call 'mini-Trump' aspect of Conservatives when they're going after so-called woke policies, when they're going after universities," Ralston said.

"Those kinds of things that kind of remind people of Trump, 'Axe the Tax,' the slogans, so I don't think that helped him at all."

Ralston said that Poilievre should have been more responsive to the Trump situation.

"If you can see Canadians are not travelling to the U.S., they're starting to boycott U.S. products, they're booing the national anthem of the United States where usually we don't do stuff like that — to read the room there, you have to pivot [from] what you've been going on about for the last three or four years," she said.