Rankin tours Cape Breton, Houston to release costed platform
The Liberals lost seats in Cape Breton in 2017
Welcome to CBC's Election Notebook, your source for regular updates and essential news from the campaign trail.
It's Day 6 of Nova Scotia's 31-day election.
The Liberal bus has crossed the causeway
After a Wednesday morning stop in Antigonish to promise more highway twinning, Liberal Leader Iain Rankin travelled to Cape Breton, where his party is undoubtedly looking to pick up seats this election. Going into the 2017 election, the Liberals held five seats on the island, but that dropped to two as the Progressive Conservatives and NDP made gains.
Rankin stopped Wednesday in the district that is now called Richmond and Northside-Westmount. The Progressive Conservatives narrowly took the formerly named Cape Breton-Richmond riding away from the Liberals in the 2017 election and handily won Northside-Westmount with incumbent Eddie Orrell, who stepped down in 2019 to run federally. The PCs held the seat in the ensuing byelection.
Richmond was won in 2017 by Alana Paon, who is running again but this time as an Independent. She was kicked out of the PC caucus in 2019.
Rankin is continuing his tour of the island Thursday, starting with a child-care announcement with Sydney-Membertou candidate Derek Mombourquette — the only Liberal incumbent in Cape Breton. Mombourquette was Rankin's minister of education and early childhood development.
Rankin will be asked Thursday to respond to new allegations from Robyn Ingraham, who was briefly the Liberal candidate for Dartmouth South. Ingraham said the Liberals pushed her out a day after she was acclaimed because party "higher ups" got cold feet over her history of posting boudoir photos online, sometimes for sale.
Tories to release costed platform
PC Leader Tim Houston has been releasing platform planks for more than a year, including detailed costed plans for long-term care and mental health care. There's more of that to come Thursday as the party releases its complete and fully costed platform.
Houston said Wednesday that he stands by the commitments in his year-old platform documents, but some of the dollar figures could require updates. He has already alluded to a third economic platform plank, in addition to his tax return program for companies that promise better wages and his buy-local rewards program.
Following a media briefing on the campaign platform Thursday morning, Houston will be heading out to the newly reinstated protected riding of Preston to campaign with PC candidate Archy Beals, and then to Cole Harbour with candidate Darryl Johnson.
NDP talk mental health care
So far this election campaign, NDP Leader Gary Burrill has stayed close to his home riding of Halifax Chebucto, and Thursday's itinerary is no different. The New Democrats have an announcement on mental health care planned for Burrill and NDP candidate Lara Fawthrop in her riding of Sackville-Cobequid.
Burrill is also scheduled to campaign in neighbouring Sackville-Uniacke, where the NDP are running Thomas Hill.
How to vote
Check whether you are registered to vote with Elections Nova Scotia.
Once registered, you can vote in advance of election day by requesting a mail-in ballot or by visiting a returning office or advance polling station in your electoral district.
On election day, polling stations will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. AT.
More information on voting is available from electionsnovascotia.ca.
Check in Friday for the next instalment of the Election Notebook, and follow all of CBC's election coverage at cbc.ca/ns
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