Liberals on course to take majority of N.S. seats, polls and experts agree
Projections for federal election results have made a 180-degree turn in just a few months
When Nova Scotia Liberals were nearly wiped off the map in a provincial election five months ago, it looked like their federal cousins were on a similar path.
But now, with the final ballots in the federal election to be cast and counted on Monday, a very different outcome seems likely. Public opinion polls and political experts are projecting the federal Liberals could take most of the 11 seats up for grabs in Nova Scotia.
"This is just going to be an extraordinary case study in the future for politics classes," said Meredith Ralston, a professor of political studies at Mount Saint Vincent University.
Ralston and other observers who spoke with CBC News attributed the reversal of fortunes in Nova Scotia to the same factors that have shaped the race nationally: the change in Liberal leadership and the intrusion of U.S. President Donald Trump into Canadian politics through tariffs and threats to Canadian sovereignty.
However, there are local factors that will also shape the outcome on a riding-by-riding basis.
Local factors
Tom Urbaniak, a professor of political science at Cape Breton University, pointed to the fisheries as an issue that favours the Conservatives in ridings that are highly dependent on that industry. He also noted the "star" factor for the Conservative candidate in Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish, Allan MacMaster.
MacMaster was a longtime Progressive Conservative MLA who recently served as finance minister and deputy premier until stepping down last fall to seek the federal nomination.
"That will count for something in that riding," said Urbaniak.
Poll aggregators 338Canada.com and TheWrit.ca both favour the Liberals in eight of Nova Scotia's ridings, projecting the other three as either leaning Conservative or a toss-up between the Liberals and Conservatives.
The projections are similar to where Nova Scotia stood at dissolution of Parliament. The Liberals held seven seats, the Conservatives held three, and one was vacant that had been held by Liberal Andy Fillmore before he stepped down to run for mayor of Halifax last fall.
The three Conservative incumbents are re-offering, as are six Liberal incumbents. Up until the first week of the campaign, only five Liberal incumbents were re-offering, but Sean Fraser — the former Trudeau cabinet minister — changed his mind at the behest of Liberal Leader Mark Carney.
Hoping against a sweep
Acadia University Prof. Alex Marland said he expects "many, many" Liberal MPs out of Nova Scotia, but he hopes not to see a sweep, which happened in 2015.
Marland said he anticipates a Liberal sweep in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Prince Edward Island, and a Liberal majority in New Brunswick. He said a sweep across the region by any party would be a "bad outcome."
"Regardless of where things end up, it's important to make sure that national parties have representation from Atlantic Canada in their caucuses," he said.
Conservatives still running to win
In spite of the apparent Liberal edge, Conservatives in Nova Scotia are still treating the race as competitive, Urbaniak said.
In Cape Breton, he said, the campaigns are "energized."
"They've got a lot of volunteers knocking on the doors, a lot of literature going around. They're trying to show up in a lot of places," Urbaniak said.
Conservatives may be showing up on doorsteps, but many Conservative candidates are declining to participate in other traditional aspects of political campaigns.
Seven out of 11 Conservative candidates in Nova Scotia declined or did not respond to interview requests from CBC News. Some also declined to speak to other media outlets and declined to participate in local candidate forums and debates hosted by non-partisan groups.
Ralston said it's "not a good strategy."
"What it's doing is just again making them look even more like mini Trumps. And so that's why a lot of people are very worried about a Conservative government."
Urbaniak said it's "a huge mistake" to make candidates scarce. He said it puts too much focus on the party's leader, Pierre Poilievre.
"People need to see that there's a team, they need to see that the local MPs would have influence to be able to bring local issues to Ottawa, to be able to bring funding and infrastructure to the ridings," said Urbaniak.
NDP collapse
Races across the province are mostly projected to be between the Liberals and Conservatives — some closer than others — but Marland said the New Democrats should not be forgotten. He doesn't expect the party to win any seats in Nova Scotia, but he said their "collapse" is an important part of the story.
He pointed to the riding of Halifax, where candidate Lisa Roberts is running for the second time. The former Nova Scotia NDP MLA lost narrowly to Fillmore in the 2021 election. Marland said Roberts's campaign was well organized and she seemed, just a few months ago, poised for victory.
"And, you know, it seems quite likely now that it will end up being Liberal," Marland said.
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