If Canadian politics were playing out in the scene of a movie right now, it would be Ben Stiller’s Zoolander with political observers and pundits doing their best Mugatu impression when talking Atlantic Canada: it’s so hot right now.
As I write this from Charlottetown, Atlantic Canada is getting hit with the strongest winter storm of the season so far. But don’t let those mounds of fresh snow fool you, the political scene in Atlantic Canada is anything but cold.
Take New Brunswick for example. Perhaps the most tame of the Atlantic jurisdictions with its newly minted majority Progressive Conservative government and seeming stability for the next four years, the progressive element in the province is going through a period of change.
The Opposition Liberals are facing yet another leadership race after former leader Kevin Vickers failed to win his own seat let alone form government, while the provincial Green Party tries to consolidate areas of support around Fredericton and the east coast of the province.
Meanwhile, if the Peoples’ Alliance sees a resurgence in their support, it’ll be difficult for the governing PCs to hold on to power in a province that has not been too kind to returning Premiers over the last couple decades, save for during their pandemic election in 2020.
Look for Premier Blaine Higgs to outline his vision for the coming year when he delivers his State of the Province Address on Wednesday, February 10th, at 2:30 pm AT. Then, tune in on Thursday, February 11th, at 2:30 pm ET when Diplomat SVP Cameron Bishop sits down with an expert panel of New Brunswick business leaders to discuss what the speech means for the province as it navigates the COVID recovery.
Over in PEI, and with a cabinet shuffle last week, Premier Dennis King is setting the stage for his reelection campaign while facing a hungry Green Party Opposition and a rudderless Liberal Party who are searching for a new captain of their own.
While the Liberals theoretically have the element of time, with an albeit razor-thin majority PC government following a byelection win last fall, they now have to contend with serious political shifts in the province as more and more voters take up the PEI Greens led by the ever-popular Peter Bevan-Baker. And that shift is cause for some concern at the federal level, too, where significant inroads have been made in the federal riding of Charlottetown to make that a three-way race between the Liberals, Greens and Conservatives.
Nova Scotia welcomed a new Premier over the weekend, with two-term MLA Iain Rankin winning the Liberal Leadership following the announced departure of former Premier Stephen MacNeil.
A former caucus chair, Minister of the Environment, and Minister of Lands and Forestry, Rankin now begins the work putting his strong caucus connections to use in shoring up the Party during this transition period while also turning his focus increasingly toward candidate recruitment for the next provincial election which must be triggered no later than April 2022. He’ll be facing off against a rejuvenated Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party with a new leader of its own in Tim Houston, who won his party’s leadership in 2018.
Now for perhaps the hottest of all Atlantic jurisdictions, Newfoundland and Labrador finds itself in the midst of a provincial election, triggered after Andrew Furey won the Newfoundland Liberal Leadership in 2020. It is required by law in Newfoundland that a newly-minted Leader that ascends to the Premier’s chair must trigger an election within one year.
And speaking of Atlantic Canada being hot right now, did you catch Newfoundland PC Leader Ches Crosbie’s recent campaign ad? Atlantic Canada, with its many small communities, typically diverges from the rest of Canada, with political “mass-marketing” tactics typically meaning a quick stop-off at the local Tim Hortons where a leader or candidate undoubtedly knows most if not all of the patrons inside. The self-deprecation in Crosbie’s ad is just another example of how Atlantic Canada diverges from the rest of Canada – it’s not hard to imagine this ad would not be rolled out in larger provinces or federal elections. The normally withdrawn Crosbie is the son of the late John Crosbie – former PC Cabinet Minister under Prime Ministers Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, and a former Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador – who was renowned for his wit and outsized personality; with this ad, Crosbie showed that he may have a taken a few lessons from his father in how to connect with the voters.
Atlantic Canadians often feel like they’re overlooked, and it’s not hard to see why. The population base simply isn’t on par with Quebec, Ontario, or the Western Provinces.
Atlantic Canadians want to be heard. They want to be taken seriously – not overlooked as being the quaint, charming neighbours on Canada’s east coast. With a dynamic workforce humming with innovation, a strong welcoming culture and a lower cost of living attracting more people to their jurisdictions, Canadians would do well to pay closer attention to what’s happening east of Quebec because as Mugatu would say, Atlantic Canada is so hot right now.
