Decision Nova Scotia: Progressive Conservatives projected to form government | FULL

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3dZ2m6vfSk"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][Music] hello and welcome to decision nova scotia 2021 thank you so much for joining us as we guide you through this provincial election i'm sarah ritchie our team here at global news is ready to bring you the latest from the victory parties to the concession speeches and everything in between we're broadcasting live tonight on the main network and on the global news app on your phone or tv we're also streaming live online so if you need to leave the house before things are finalized we've got you covered our reporters are with the three main party leaders tonight elizabeth mcsheffrey is in halifax with liberal leader ian rankin alicia drouse is in new glasgow at pc leader tim houston's headquarters and alexa maclean is in dartmouth with ndp leader gary burl and joining me in studio tonight to break down the results is laurie turnbull a political science professor and the director of the school of public administration at dalhousie university over in ottawa our chief political correspondent david aiken is keeping an eye on each of the 55 races underway tonight and ross lord is here in halifax as well he's going to be talking to a number of nova scotians tonight on a range of issues from affordability to the environment to health and long-term care now before those results start pouring in just a quick explanation about what you're seeing here if you're watching online you can click on your writing for updated results anytime for those of you watching on tv or on the app you can see the l frame here on your screen and this is where we're going to show you live results as they're reported by elections nova scotia so the bottom of your screen this is where you'll see overall standings each of the parties is trying to get to 28 seats tonight that is majority territory along the side you'll see results for each of the 55 individual ridings now before those results start coming in we want to take a look at where the nova scotia legislature was before the writ dropped on july 17th and where will be tomorrow the makeup of the legislature is about to change and who will sit on the government side will soon find out there is one certainty after election day there will be more seats in this chamber when ian rankin dissolved the legislature in mid-july there were 51 electoral districts nova scotians will today elect 55 representatives because the map was redrawn in 2019 four writings have been added argyle claire richmond and preston are so-called protected ridings meant to ensure acadian and black voters are represented in the house that's a return to the way things were before 2012. there are also new ridings in fast-growing areas around halifax here's how things stood when we entered this election the liberals held 24 seats just shy of a majority the progressive conservatives 17 and the new democrat party had five when the pcs ousted elizabeth smith mccrawson in june she became the third independent mla joining her former caucus member alana ponn and ex-liberal hugh mckay pawn and smith mccrawson are running as independents two former liberal seats were vacant at dissolution annapolis which was held by former premier stephen mcneill and hance east where former cabinet minister margaret miller stepped down after she said rankin promoted a staffer who she accused of misogynist behavior and they're not the only mainstays not in this race 13 of the 51 members of the house decided not to run including 10 liberals no matter how things play out tonight there will be a large group of first time mlas heading to province house for the next sitting this fall nova scotia is not the first province to hold an election during the kobit 19 pandemic new brunswick became the first just about a year ago and so far across the country every incumbent government that's held an election during the pandemic has won but it may not be a slam dunk here tonight alicia drouse takes a look back at the month-long campaign if the liberals were hoping for a quiet summer campaign they didn't really get it before it even got underway leader ian rankin was dealing with a controversy after he revealed he was twice charged with drunk driving in the early 2000s the day the official campaign began a liberal candidate dropped out in dartmouth south robin ingraham initially said she stepped aside for mental health reasons but in a social media post she said the liberals asked her to quit the race over boudoir photos she posted online and she said the party told her to blame her mental health so the public was asked to be forgiving of ian rankin for his past encounters with the law including a conviction and here you have a situation where a woman candidate had not had any trouble with the law the liberals entered the campaign with a healthy lead in the polls but both the progressive conservatives and ndp have gained ground with pcs focusing their campaign on rural nova scotia getting nova scotians access to health care that's what this campaign is all about the ndp meanwhile have tried to corner the vote in the halifax area and cape breton a vote for the ndp is a vote for permanent rent control and a vote for permanent rent control is a vote for the ndp political experts say the liberal campaign lacked a similarly clear message the liberal focus was to run a low-key campaign in hope that enough nova scotians will go to the ballot box and say the current government is good enough the liberals do have the advantage though of being the party that led nova scotia through the kovit 19 pandemic however rankin has only been leader since february after premier stephen mcneil stepped down and he's been met with protests at a number of campaign stops and accused of avoiding media questions can you tell me why there are no media events for the last two days no i don't i don't know why there are no media events for that i'm not sure that i don't understand that question there's just like we're in a campaign we're like out but in the end it all comes down to ballots cast and with a summer election there have been concerns that voter turnout could drop to a historic low alicia droves global news halifax so as mentioned political scientist lori turnbull is here with us all night thank you so much for being with us to break down the results thanks for having me on this is fun yes it will be fun the election tonight lori is all about change elections are always about change and as we talked about just before that item from alicia there hasn't been change across canada when governments have held elections during this pandemic do you think that will hold tonight i don't know i mean this is a bit of a different feel for a pandemic election because we haven't had like for i don't get the sense here that there's like a palpable sense of a public health threat we have i think nine active cases of copen19 and so i don't think there's a sense that people feel that they're they haven't been able to actively participate and also like if you're asking voters to make a decision about who they want to lead during an emergency there's a sensibility to saying if all other things are equal we'll stay with what we have but if we don't feel that we're in the eye of the storm anymore voters might feel more of a sense that they can make a choice okay and then talking about change in an election i mean we've seen a change in the polling in terms of the projections for this throughout the campaign what happened through the campaign okay so like i think the lead that ian rank and the liberals had at the beginning was probably always a bit that was going to change because he was riding on that kind of like not a high but a sense that the focus was on him because he's the premier it's an emergency the house isn't sitting he's with dr strang every day do it like that's a different kind of style of communicating with people then you get yourself thrusted into a campaign where now the opposition leaders are on a kind of similar playing field to you and so now as opposed to being kind of like in in that kind of press conference feel with dr strang now he's competing now other people are challenging him so that was always going to change but we'll see how much has changed over the past 30 days later tonight right and there's been a shift in terms of the way the parties have communicated in terms of the way the liberals especially have communicated from the beginning of the campaign to now we've seen them sort of changing their messaging in terms of starting to talk more about being the party that could lead you through the rest of covet 19. yeah i and i think i mean to be perfectly honest i think the other two parties like houston has clearly been about health care from day one uh gary burrell and the ndp have been clearly about affordable housing and rent control from day one it's it's harder to discern a clearer policy focus for the liberal party which isn't to say they don't have policy focus it's just that they don't have that one thing that kind of puts them on the map and i think you're you know you you and and the the piece before us was right like i mean they were kind of hoping i think that people would just go along and people would not necessarily click in enough to kind of start thinking oh do i want another government like and perhaps you know they would be able to ride the same wave as other previous election you know during the pandemic incumbents get back in i'm not sure this time we saw that happen in new brunswick about a year ago blaine higgs ran a very quiet campaign he just sort of went out and said we've been doing this we'd like to continue doing it why didn't that seem to work the same way for ian rankin yeah i mean i think for blatant higgs it was a very different situation right like i think for him he was looking at an opposition leader in kevin vickers who didn't have a seat himself he was he was weak right and so i think blaine higgs kind of like read the whiting on the on the wall and thought i can do this i can call those three by-elections if i want and keep going in this minority context for another while or i can just do this and i think you know politically he made the right call but rankin is in a very different situation where he's not the incumbent premier in the same way that higgs was he has only been here for a few months really right and so he hasn't had the same time to let nova scotians get to know him okay thanks so much lori we will come back to all of these themes as the night goes on let's go now to david aiken he's our chief political correspondent for global news and he's tracking the results all night for us on a pretty nifty map you've got there david on the big screen the tv screen and right behind me here it is this is the 55 ridings that are up for grabs tonight that's different right 55 ridings in 2017 it was 54 ridings and here's how things turned out in 2017. i don't need to tell you red is a liberal writing blue is a pc writing and orange is an ndp writing now when we've got 55 writings lots of writings have had to have their boundaries adjusted and that means some writings that were say red might now have shifted orange or shifted a little more blue i want to focus in on three that are net bad for ian rankin's liberals let's start with one chester saint margaret's this is this is that's tonight we don't have a result sorry that was 2017. 2017 this was a squeaker of a race liberal hugh mckay won by less than 100 votes look at that 35.5 percent 34.4 percent beat an ndp incumbent to win chester saint margaret's now hugh mckay since had some legal issues stepped out of caucus he's not running again chester st margaret's is wide open but there's a boundary change to chester st margaret's and i want to show it to you it's right down here where peggy's cove is i'm going to move that in blowing up this is peggy's cove halifax that away okay 2011 watch closely right on this line 2021. did you see that chunk go that chunk is now timberly prospect that is the riding of the premier ian rankin this is chester st margaret's get this all the people who live around here they tend to vote liberal and now they're over in this riding which means this riding again we'll go back to chester st margaret's let's pull it up a bit there's chester there's saint margaret's guess how they vote in chester and saint margaret's they vote new democrat so this writing which was narrowly read has shifted orange gary burl and the ndp should pick that up now i see a little color has popped up on my 2021 map and you know what that means we've got our first results so let's hold everything and zoom right in on we talked about gary burrell his riding halifax chebucto one poll is reporting out of 37. this couldn't be earlier but we love the first result and it's a lead for gary burrell he's up 10 to five it's kind of like i don't know is that a hockey game or are we into a football game at ten to five ten votes for gary burl jackie kinley the liberalists that got five votes so that's where we are right now the very first votes coming in anything else no i want to talk about one more writing where a writing change puts the liberal in peril and that's tony ins tony ins in 2017. let's go to halifax so we can zoom in right there there's tony inches victory in coal harbor portland valley in 2017 36.9 to 32.9 so he wins by four points the riding at in 2017 uh was a mix of liberal conservative and new democrat voters look how it's changed again this is this is the writing we're looking at watch his writing change now boom this is now the new coal harbor right there it's just called coal harbor because tony ins has lost some of the portland estates neighborhoods they tended to vote liberal and he's picked up some neighborhoods here that's the willowdale neighborhoods they tend to vote conservative so now tony ins in just plain old coal harbor he's got to deal with more conservative voters that might help out the pc candidate daryl johnson so those are just two writings and there's quite a few actually well i'll give you one one quick other one because i think this is kind of fun one it's up there on the island up in cape breton in 2017 we had right down here in the corner we had cape breton richmond won by the pcs beating michelle sampson very popular cabin minister four-time winner he loses by a hair but you know what it's about this riding in 2021 they sought it off right here boom now we have re we have a new riding called richmond there it is and we have a new riding called cape breton east let me tell you about the voters in this riding the way it works right down around here port hawkesbury they tend to vote conservative over here eel madame that's where the liberals are then all through here boy it's all conservative so when we look at what's happening now cape breton east had it existed in 2017 would have been one of the blowout conservative wins they're all voting pc up in the north half cape breton east louisburg etc but richmond now may be more of an easier win for the liberals if the liberals in this part of the riding can turn out more than the conservatives over towards port hawkesbury so that's how some of these riding boundaries turn one riding from say red to blue blue to orange etc we're going to keep an eye on these close races all night long sarah yeah absolutely david and i can see there are a couple more results coming in behind you what was i talking about here just as i said they're they're all going to vote torrey up there in cape breton east sure enough boop no they're not aching they're voting somewhere else one one one poll is in heather peters is up 13 to six okay so this is going to change i'm thinking during the night but we'll see cape breton east is in right now put that in the whoops in the liberals uh leading and then anything else that's it david dartmouth i did well that's preston sorry we'll get it there we are have to press up right on the thing dartmouth east we have the new democrats ahead tyler colborne nine to seven much closer hockey game there nine to seven one pole in nine votes for colborne seven for tim hallman the incumbent and tim holman won a very close one too in 2017 but again he's dealing with some new uh dartmouth east looks very very different than its predecessor riding so right now tyler colburn ahead so that what does that give us in if we look at early on we get well oh and there we got one of the lunenbergs just popped in uh lunenburg susan cork uh corkum greek ahead of allison smith sarah i know you know that the pcs are very keen on the lunenbergs and they think the two luneburg seats lunenburg lunenburg west if the pcs can pick up one or both of those um there are liberal before we went into this that might be a sign that tim houston and the pcs might be inching their way towards dethroning uh the the liberals so we're definitely going to watch the luna bergs tonight yeah absolutely thanks so much david david aiken clearly having too much fun with this smart board in ottawa for us tonight okay this is a pandemic election this last 18 months or so has had a different impact on each of us and so we wanted to hear from some regular nova scotians tonight talking about what their lives have been like through covid19 and what they want to see from their future government let's bring in ross lord now ross introduce us to who you're speaking with tonight well thank you sarah yes these three folks have a very strong interest in the outcome and like us they're very keen to get more results tonight uh nimat sabani who is a small business owner in halifax lydia halck the executive director of students nova scotia and sandra leblanc who is a continuing care assistant with tideview terrace long-term care home in digby thank you all three of you for being here at the same time uh we really appreciate your insights i want to start with you sandra and and because we're all looking at this through the lens of the pandemic i want you to tell us how much as much as you can about the impact of the pandemic on you and your colleagues i would have to say that most of us have had um an overwhelming sense of the unknown an overwhelming sense of fear is today going to be the day um just trying to take things day by day and the changes that came with it and there's a lot to talk about in terms of what you might anticipate or at least hope to see from whomever comes out of this in control tonight or if it does go into tomorrow what are the sort of things that you think are required to improve conditions for you and your colleagues and again these conditions existed before the pandemic and in some ways they were just worsened right long-term care has been struggling for a long time we need to address some of the issues about retention um attracting new students staff and keeping them yeah thank you very much and i hope that we get to revisit this a little bit later lydia hauck i want to turn to you now uh in a broad sense what has the impact of the pandemic being on the people you represent who are students yeah absolutely i think we've seen across youth and students there's been a lot of challenges some of them that already existed that were exacerbated throughout the pandemic you know things like the transition to online learning challenges around affordability whether that be educational cost or housing and beyond that also employment challenges i think there's a lot of ways that we've seen mental health and isolation and things like that really be further challenged throughout this process for students and youth as well as the general population and we promised each of you that we would not uh push you into being partisan or taking sides about who you prefer here in terms of which party but i i am wondering if if you anticipate or or hope uh for anything tangible to come out of this tonight that will help students you know ultimately what we're really hoping for is just to see students and youth showing up to the polls and that those numbers are going to be high because the one thing we've been saying throughout our you know vote campaign is that if students and youth want to see their issues prioritized by the government we need to be showing up to the polls so ultimately having a good youth voter turnout of this election in itself would be a success from our perspective thank you very much lydia hulk and uh nimat silvani your situation is fascinating as well because you're a small business owner in halifax uh the humanity cafe here on the north end tell us what happened during the pandemic to you during the pandemic we uh so we were trying to comply by uh well it's so difficult to say everything we uh we lost all of our staff right at the beginning because everyone was being asked to stay away and there was much needed government assistance to all of those people but we needed the income so we kept the business open and during that time all the pressure of running the business fell on the shoulders of myself my brother and partner and then my wife had to step in she had never worked in the cafe before in order to pick up the slack and we we plotted right through and you know we when it got busy we couldn't get enough staff and then when we finally had staff then we had another lockdown and we lost them so it was very difficult to know what to budget for in terms of uh staffing because of the ups and downs of the uh of the the pandemic so that was one of the main challenges that we faced and what's the status of your business now we have announced to the public that we are closing uh and we've uh we're basically doing inventory clearance right now and towards the uh towards september uh we will be vacating the premises we just could not justify the long hours and for the for the partial income that was coming in thank you and i am sorry to hear that but but let's just say that tonight is about hope in some way are there things or is there something that you're anticipating or hoping to see emerge from tonight that could help you because you told me earlier that you have more business to do you feel like you've got uh you know a future uh ahead of you in business are there things that the winning party tonight or the next government can do that will help you have uh have a fighting chance absolutely the uh i feel that the government of nova scotia could really help promote small business not just you know to do business locally but also to give us a uh a leg up when it comes to selling outside of the province one of the biggest challenges that we face when we did try to sell things outside the province was the cost of shipping and bringing getting our products to market and we found that we were really at a huge disadvantage when it came to the big businesses so small business really should be put on a focus and uh you know we should be able to access programs that would allow us to become competitive at the beginning to give us a leg up and then afterwards then the business itself would be able to stand on its own two legs excellent uh thank you very much very well said nimat sabani lydia hauck sandra leblanc thank you so much for your insights and your time uh sarah it's going to be a fascinating night no one knows how it's going to turn out we can't wait to see and we also can't wait to see how much difference comes out of this for for these three folks and for others in nova scotia back to you okay thanks so much that is ross lord he's in halifax with our panel of nova scotians want to draw your attention to the bottom of your screen we have some very early results from elections nova scotia that we want to run through right now colchester muskegon valley larry harrison the incumbent out to an early lead just one of 38 polls reporting so these are very early results here from elections nova scotia the pc is now leading and elected in five ridings the liberals in four the ndp in two have a look at our next early results this should be cole harbor dartmouth laura lee nicholl the former municipal councillor out to an early lead over the karina sanford here let's have a look at king's west this is another very early result again one of 46 polls but emily lutz is out to an early lead another municipal councillor running for the liberals here and in queens this is a again very early results here very few votes being counted so far but kim maslin the incumbent for the pcs out to a 53 vote lead here and lori as of right now you can see at the ticker on the bottom of our screen the pcs have just jumped ahead to six ridings where they're leading and elected the liberals back in five the ndp in two so this is all very early days we are seeing some incumbents and we're seeing some municipal councillors out to early leads that's interesting in this race there are quite a few municipal councillors running there are there's an interesting uh narrative there around municipal councillors who want to jump into the provincial and we've also like kind of on the flip side because you've also got a federal election going on there are some provincial who are trying to move federal bill casey's been federally trying to move provincial so it's interesting to see this kind of political career move from one sphere to another but yeah i mean like you can see how if someone was a municipal councillor they would have that experience campaigning they'd have built trust in in that writing you know so that could be a real asset tonight and name recognition counts absolutely oh yeah because especially in when there's no incumbent in the provincial writing it's almost like you bring a sense of incumbency not quite but almost right in the sense that you built that record you can run on a record okay that's something we'll keep watching because there are so many ridings here tonight without incumbents running but for right now we're going to take a short break stay with us there's more decision nova scotia 2021 coming up right after this [Music] welcome back to decision nova scotia 2021 thanks so much for being with us as we track these election results and the fine folks at elections nova scotia are counting those ballots as quickly as they can we have some very early results i want to draw your attention to so the progressive conservatives are now leading or elected in eight ridings the liberals in seven the ndp in two the liberals of course would be looking to get to 28 ridings to win a majority government here tonight liberal headquarters is where we find elizabeth mcsheffrey this evening and i understand elizabeth that you have a guest andy fillmore standing by with you that's right halifax mp andy fillmore is joining me here as my guest we're already seeing some people filtering into the room lots of red shirts lots of young people you're one of them of course thank you elizabeth i appreciate that very much well so you've been on the campaign you've made a couple of stops with liberal leader ian rankin tell me what do you think is the standout promise of the liberal party something that really separates them from the other parties in this election well there's no question that the continuity of getting nova scotia through the pandemic and what comes next into the recovery and into addressing some of the social concerns that have been laid bare by the pandemic that is really the strength of the liberal party at this point and the strength of ian rankin and when i've been on the doors with candidates this is what i'm hearing there as well okay and you're no stranger to this political game of course and i'm sure you're aware that the liberals are running a little bit thin on incumbent mlas this time how much do you think that's going to hurt them i can speak from my experience in 2015 in the federal election that being thin on incumbency was actually a tremendous strength this is a chance for the party to renew itself to build the liberal party of the next decade and beyond so these are candidates that we're seeing fresh ideas new perspectives diverse backgrounds this is actually going to be the new strength of the liberal party okay and we're starting to see some very early election results come in and those numbers are going up and down and you're no stranger to that either tell me what's it like as somebody who has run for office held office to be watching those results come in on a night like this the pitter patter in your heart is going to be here all night long and we won't know until the the last ballot is counted what the outcome is going to be i know there's a lot of anticipation and different candidates from all the parties handle that in different ways some are with their families some are with their campaign teams some are out for a long walks in the woods but i can say this that all the parties or rather all the candidates and all parties have worked extremely hard and whatever the outcome is tonight it's what nova scotians wanted and my feeling from the doors is that that's going to be a liberal government all right well halifax mp andy fillmore thank you so much for joining me i'm sure there's going to be a lot of that that pitter-patter energy in the room tonight we'll just have to wait and see how that dynamic changes as the night goes on uh back to you sarah for now thanks so much elizabeth elizabeth mcshaffry is in halifax for us tonight she's at liberal party headquarters in there with one of the federal liberal candidates in the federal race but we won't talk about that race yet let's talk about the one we are dealing with tonight the pcs are now leading and elected in 10 ridings and one of them is argyle where colton leblanc the incumbent here is out to a very sizable lead so far only four of 22 polls reporting in argyll let's take a look now at pikto west if we can this is another pc lead carla mcfarland out to a significant lead here as well no surprise there she's the incumbent and the pikto's are pretty friendly to the pcs in traditional nova scotia territory four of 31 polls reporting there victoria the lakes nadine bernard is out to an early lead for the liberals here over incumbent keith bain so the progressive conservatives so far leading and elected in 10 ridings the liberals in seven the ndp in third every party tonight trying to get to 28 this is where we would see a majority government let's have a look at some more results here really quickly if we can places where the liberals could pick up a seat over the pcs so an incumbent pc uh in trouble here in cape breton east and very early results heather peters for the liberals is out to a just a seven vote lead so again very early results one of 37 polls reporting here chester saint margaret's david aiken talked about this one it's going to be a riding to watch tonight jacob kilauea is out to a nine vote lead for the liberals but they could take this one and if they did they'd be feeling pretty good about their chances for this evening final result here where the liberals could pick up from the progressive conservatives this is over in oh pardon me we don't have any more results so the pcs are now leading and elected in 12 ridings the liberals in seven the ndp in three so this is feeling like positive momentum for the progressive conservatives let's go to pc headquarters in new glasgow now that's where we find alicia drouse alicia thank you sir well energy in the room is certainly building up every time that pc number on your screen ticks up we're getting lots of cheers erupting in the room so people feeling pretty positive so far tonight now those that i've spoken with say that i mean this really shows that that message of health care is really getting through really resonating uh with nova scotians that of course was the priority of the pcs throughout this whole campaign tim houston really focused on health care that's been a big issue especially in rural parts of the province where doctors it's more difficult to retain and recruit doctors so that's again been their focus and they say that it's starting to pay off as we see these numbers take up now of course they're going to be looking for that majority so that magic number that you've been talking about of 28 that will require them to get 11 more seats than they did in 2017. so again lots of energy in this room there's anticipation is building as we start to get some more of the results trickling in and next time i'll be talking with some of the fellow campaign members here sarah okay thank you so much alicia alicia droughts is standing by for us in new glasgow monitoring pc party headquarters let's head now to dartmouth alexa mclean is at ndp headquarters this is the final of our party headquarters tonight alexa well sarah greetings from the alderney landing theater in dartmouth the excitement is slowly brewing people are coming in to support and basically keeping their eyes to the results as they come in but i just wrapped up a phone call with the director the communications director for the nova scotia ndp campaign he's standing alongside gary burrell the leader as the results come in tonight and he gave me a little bit of a rundown about what the election for them was all about and he said that the sleepy quote election that the liberal party was hoping for is just not what folks were saying is the case on the doorsteps lucas wide the communications director said that people were very engaged in topics that were basically heightened because of the pandemic and that's the ongoing need for a lot of health care and housing supports and one area in particular that wide says the ndp focused on in terms of health was making sure that mental health care investments weren't just an add-on to the health care system but front and center he said that a lot of folks were saying the fourth wave for them is going to be more about a mental health break a rising wave of mental health concerns with the fourth wave and that's something that the nova scotia ntp have focused on in their platform with some same day or health care investments on the mental health fronts and making sure that emergency crisis teams for mental health supports are deployed across the province so that's one area of the ndp platform that wide says they're really hoping will resonate with voters and on making sure that they gain some ground well the first step wide says is just ensuring that they maintain the five seats in the legislature that they had when their writ dropped and of course outside of halifax and dartmouth that means cape breton needs to be retained as well so they're hoping that that will be the bare minimum tonight and then of course some other writings to watch for the ndp are seats that they lost in the last election sackville cop quit steve craig pc there they're hoping to get that back and chester st margaret so things are starting to brew here of course every minute things get more exciting for folks in the room but we'll certainly be checking in throughout the night back to you sarah and lori thanks so much alexa that's alexa mclean she's at ndp headquarters in dartmouth this evening and the party will certainly be looking for a better result than they're seeing right now they're only leading and elected in three ridings that means not even holding on to the five that they had before dissolution but it's very early the results that we have right now are just very very early so let's take a look at some of the writings where the liberals appear to be in trouble glade spade dominion this is a redrawn writing but john white is out to an early lead over john john mccarthy of the liberals this was uh glace bay was the riding for jeff mcclellan before for the liberals he squeaked out a win in 2017 let's take a look at guys bro now this is a cabinet minister who is trailing in very early results here as well to a progressive conservative challenger here just 14 votes separating the two at this point and only one poll reporting king south another place where the liberals are trailing in these very early results again just seven boats separating derek kimball from keith irving and in king's west as well this writing is uh emily lutz is now trailing chris palmer here so just five votes separating the two of them and in lunenburg david aiken talked about this being a writing that the progressive conservatives had their eye on susan corkum greek out to a five vote lead over the ndp uh candidate rather here so suzanne lones croft appears to be in some trouble here so lori if we're looking at these early results and again very early very slim margins because only a few votes have really been counted but when you're seeing liberal cabinet ministers behind we're seeing the pcs out to a nine seat lead here leading an elected in 18 over the liberals nine uh that doesn't feel good if you're in the liberal camp i imagine no for sure i mean you never know how much those early polls are going to be indicative of the night or are they just indicative of the moment and i think especially you know in an election like this one where there's so many uncertainties like in terms of who's going to come out to vote who's going to do mail and ballot and advance poll and on the day ballot and how will that affect the different you know is there a benefit to one party or another for voting a certain way so like i mean i think we are really in in an early moment but at the same time like you you want to see if you ran if you're a leader you want to see that early start look really good for you because it just kind of gets you through the night and for now yeah i mean houston is is looking at this thinking yeah that's what that's that's what i want that's where i want to be still 10 more seats to go if they want to get into that majority territory so the pc is leading and elected in 18 ridings at this point the liberals in nine the ndp in three these are very early results from elections nova scotia just a handful of votes separating the different candidates in all of these ridings i want to go back now to david aiken who's tracking those results riding by writing for us tonight david yeah no and and you know elections are about change so right now there's some change happening right we know that writings that were blue are now red and red is now orange and and so on let's take a look at that this is halifax right here this is 2021 halifax halifax right now this is not good for the ndp let me touch on that dartmouth north there's a change susan leblanc the incumbent is losing to pam cooley but there's just one poll in it's third actually it's pardon me it's a tie game 13 to 13. dartmouth north should be that should be a change let's take a look at dartmouth east tyler colborne is winning nine to seven over tim holman again a bit of a change happening there i want to pull further out take a look at all of the ridings look at what's going on here over in the annapolis valley this annapolis that's stephen mcneil's old riding that was the biggest liberal victory in 2017. it was stephen mcneil but right now with five pulls in so we're getting kind of here it's close 253 votes to so the pc candidate jennifer ehrenfeld poole leading the liberal carmen carr no incumbent as they say this was steven mcneill's old riding this absolutely should be liberal by the end of the night but right now it's in the pc column you want to talk about the world as upside down let's go to cape breton folks here's cape here's cape breton in 2017 do you see all the blue let's look at that one keith baine in 2017 he won by 60 percent look where keith bain is tonight he's not winning but there's only five pulls in he's behind the liberal 56 percent to 32 i think keith baine is not going to drop 30 points i think victoria the lakes by the end of the night comes back on the blue side but that's kind of strange and then we talked about the john race the johns this is the one everybody on social media is loving this race it's the one in glace bay dominion and we know john is leading let's find out which john there we are glace bay dominion it's john white leading he's ahead of john john who's ahead of john i i kid but how can you knock kid when you've got four john's essentially running in this riding glace bay dominion though look at this look keep your eye on this this is this is tonight this was 2017. that was red glace bay jeff mccullen as sarah was saying that's the incumbent so again upside down world this should remain red tonight and these should be blue that's the upside down world we have in cape breton so taking a look at the map right now 2021 that's right now with a handful of polls in each riding contrast with 2017. for my money look at that the annapolis that's that's really going to be all red right down to zach churchill's riding in yarmouth that was another big liberal win down there in 2021 yep there's zach anchoring things at the bottom but a lot of blue on the eastern shore this is this is an important pickup for the pcs if greg morrow can defeat lloyd hines lloyd hines in 2017. let's go back here we are in eastern sorry in in trackadee guysboro guysborough eastern short trackity i'll get it all right there lloyd hines in 2017 won look how narrow that was just less than 100 votes tonight the pcs are doing better in this territory they have to pick a riding like this up if tim houston wants to be premier this has to remain in the blue column those guys up in cape breton as they say world's upside down up there sarah it's it's red's gonna be blue before we're done and blue's gonna be red i'm almost certain but we're keeping an eye on glace bay dominion and we're very happy to have all those john's running for office sarah it's my favorite riding too thanks so much david david akin standing by in ottawa with all of those riding by riding results here's another race we're watching really closely this evening i want to take a look now at cumberland north bill casey out to a one vote lead over elizabeth smith mccrosson who's running as the independent candidate here you may recall she used to be a progressive conservative she in fact ran for the leadership against tim houston was booted out of the caucus not so long ago there's just one poll reporting here so far so these are very early results and you know as david has been mentioning may change through the night but we do want to follow this race really closely and that's why we sent our callum smith over to amherst he's in cumberland north for us this evening keeping an eye on this race callum good evening sarah from breakfast at britney's here in amherst this is where elizabeth smith mccrosson and all of her supporters are watching the results very closely there's probably 50 plus maybe 60 people but as i look back it looks like more are are certainly packing in ms smith lacrosse and arrived at about 7 10 this evening to of course as you can imagine a round of applause from her supporters uh she's been going around introducing herself and greeting and thanking uh supporters for coming you know it's it's an interesting race sarah it's you know it's one vote at this point obviously very early in the night some predict it could go down to the wire between smith mccrosson and bill casey for the liberals but elizabeth smith mccrosson is running as an independent she's the incumbent but as you mentioned kicked out of the tour caucus back in late june uh for her role uh promoting an illegal border blockade highway blockade that is um she was kicked out of the pc caucus sat as an independent for the next couple weeks before starting this campaign and running as an independent certainly brings challenges you don't have you know full party support around you but i asked elizabeth smith lacrosse about that earlier today and she said she does have support she says the former cumberland north pc writing association a lot of those supporters a lot of those members have came with her and are part of her campaign even though she's sitting as an independent so sarah will certainly be a tight one to watch tonight and we'll we'll have our eyes very closely on it here but for now i'll throw it back to you thanks so much callum that's callum smith he's in amherst this evening keeping an eye on cumberland north where elizabeth smith mccrawson is looking to hold on to a seed and speaking of holding on to a seat let's have a look at some of our first results here this evening in the riding of argyll colton leblanc the incumbent for the progressive conservatives will return to the legislature as mla he has a very sizable lead there for the progressive conservatives they are now leading and elected in 23 ridings remember 28 is the number they need to reach in order to get to majority territory the liberals trailing with just nine the ndp with four let's have a look here at the popular vote this tells a different story so the progressive conservatives with the 50 of the popular vote at this point in the evening the liberals 31 the new democrats 16 and then other so that would encompass our atlantica party our green party our independent candidates three percent there so 50 for the pcs lori i want to talk to you about this right now i mean we know in our first past the post system that that isn't the way the seat count will shake out necessarily but 50 at this point in the night very early results that's a sizable lead oh yeah yeah exactly i mean when you think about it like we think of nova scotia having a pretty robust three-party system and to see one party get 50 of the popular vote even if it doesn't hold like if he's in that ballpark by the end of the night that's significant that shows that people have like if that's the case and it holds that this election has really shifted toward tim houston the progressive conservatives and it kind of calls into question the robustness of that three-party system that we've seen over the last few elections and i think obviously it shows like with respect to the ndp are they able to to make the kind of gains that they want with the system we have over time they tend not to they tend to be disadvantaged by the system we have and is it possible that people are thinking they don't want to park their vote there because a win is unlikely okay so very early results here this evening the progressive conservatives out to a pretty significant lead at that point at this point leading and elected in 23 ridings over the liberals 11 5 for the ndp we want to go back to pc party headquarters that's where we find our alicia drouse tonight in new glasgow alicia thanks sarah well again excitement really building here and one thing i should mention though is that tim houston actually isn't here right now he won't be here until quite a lot later tonight he's watching the results privately with his family in the meantime the room is filling out with uh campaign staff and i am joined tonight with dave taran who's a campaign advisor on houston's campaign so dave can you tell me a little bit about how you're feeling about everything uh tonight well obviously we're very encouraged by the early results still a lot of votes to be counted still a lot of writings left to report so no one's taking anything for granted so far but certainly it's been a very encouraging show for i mean people are still cheering they are still very encouraging for our candidates and their teams so we're very proud of them uh so while no one's popping champagne models my search imagination there's still too many writings to report too many votes be counted we're happy with how things are going so and of far yeah we can hear the cheering going on here as every time another riding kind of the pcs take the lead there um what do you i guess a tribute to this i guess early success anyways right now you know it was an incredible focus from our leader tim houston all the way down uh understanding that you know nova scotians were very concerned about health care uh that there's long-standing issues in health care with a doctor shortage with a crisis with ambulance service and that you know that while kova 19 pandemic dominated the headlines for the past you know 18 months the fact that is the challenges of health care are long-standing he understand that people deserve better they wanted to see better and that focus on health care i think we're seeing that it's connected with nova scotians in a very deep and resounding way and now i mean again that the campaign largely focused on health care in halifax in in hrm the ndp really focused on rent control and we are seeing that they've taken the lead in dartmouth east where tim hallman is the incumbent i'm just wondering um if there are any concerns about that riding and if maybe there should have been a bit more of a focus in halifax well i mean it's obvious very early in dartmouth at dartmouth east and and we'll see where where the chips fall and in terms of that particular riding uh listen ndp have made a strong case about affordability and rents in particular i know our platform spoke about affordability too it offered different solutions like the better paycheck guarantee so certainly we had solutions on that i think the bigger issue is that urban rural cape breton mainland it doesn't really matter where you are the uh uh that the health care issue hits every nova scotian and so we weren't going to go to one part of the province and say it's healthcare and then change our message somewhere else i think the liberals try to do that a little bit and and it didn't work as well for them as it should have every part of nova scotia that tim houston went to there was an issue with health care and every part of nova scotia he went to he had a solution for health care i think that's what we're seeing tonight all right and i just want to ask you about some of the seats that you are leading in both anti-ganesh uh and annapolis both former pc um top people are sorry both former liberal uh candidates were there so um randy delorey might be losing his seat there and premier steve mcneill who stepped down so there's no incumbent there why do you think those writings are leaning pc right now well the same way that i'm not we're not going to concede dartmouth east yet we're not going to declare a victory in in those writings either i think what you're seeing is uh pc candidates performing a lot more strongly than anybody anticipated and it's worth thinking back as recently as late may the pcs were down 28 points in the polls and for us to be actually in a situation where electronics this far and tonight we're leading in in the former premier mcneill's writing shows just how effective uh tim houston's strategy his focus and discipline and providing real solutions for healthcare is resonating with nova scotians all across the province all right thank you so much dave so as you guys just heard the pcs feeling pretty good right now but again it's still early they're not counting any of the chickens before they're fully hatched i'll send it back to you sarah okay thanks so much alicia alicia drouse live for us tonight in new glasgow lori we've been listening to the campaign advisor for tim houston talk about how their message of health care is really resonating i mean every party in this election has been talking about health care so with these early results the pc is out to a lead in 25 ridings the liberals trailing with 10 to what extent does the message of the party count or the leadership of the party yeah i mean i think it's probably both right because obviously health care is always a huge issue in this province in all provinces but the issues like doctors shortages nurses shortages hospital closures trying to deal with cost of everything like we have been talking about the same issues for every election for decades and it's literally like you can look back at campaign material and it's so close so it's like okay you know everybody like it's not the case where somebody can say i'm going to run on health care and i'm going to win clearly there's there's something about whatever the pcs did whatever houston did in this campaign that resonated with people clearly i mean you know i shouldn't say clearly like we'll have to look back at some point to figure out was there a voter fatigue with the liberals was the the pandemic kind of you know incumbent return policy that seemed to have happened with all the others didn't happen here why was that right so like i think there's probably more to it than that but ultimately like i don't think the health care push was enough right but i think it must have been it must have been leadership too what do you mean by voter fatigue i mean i think people like understandably will get tired of having the same government and you know they'll they'll want to to try something new and i think with our parties being not the same but close together in terms of um where they are on the ideological spectrum there yeah i mean like there's a lot of overlap between our parties if although that's not what it looks like right now necessarily but if we end up with a minority government tonight i think there's a lot of ways that these parties can work together and so it means that if voters do feel like they'd like to take something else for a spin they've got choices okay and so right now the pc is leading and elected in 25 the liberals holding at 10 the ndp and 6. i see there's one in the other column i'm hoping we can figure out where that is but we'll come back to that in a moment the ndp here lori tonight uh six writings at this point it's still very early results but this doesn't really show them making the significant kind of gains that you would hope to see if you were hoping to form government or even opposition that's it i mean they went into this thing with five i like i don't know how necessarily gary world to find success in this election for himself but i think they were probably thinking of double digits for sure and i think they you know they did a lot of work to push this issue of affordable housing and rent control and they really focused on areas that had that that message would really resonate and be part of people's lives and so i think if they don't see a return from that if they don't see that this message that did resonate and the stories they told about nova scotians and that doesn't turn into more seats for them that's you know that's jarring for them like that's that's not just a bad night that's a kind of existential what are we what are we doing then like what would work with people if not this okay speaking of existential questions if the liberals results here hold ten ridings coming from being government this certainly would not be a good night for ian rankin what does this say about i guess his leadership his campaign that he ran like i mean i i think there'll be a certain amount of kind of looking back and thinking what went wrong when did we lose this were we ever going to win this would any of the other contenders for leadership have done better a more frightening question would stephen mcneill have won this and maybe you know and so you look at that and you think okay like what do we want to do then right like if we're in if if we've got that like i mean if the numbers kind of hold the way they are now in terms of relative terms of the parties that would put the liberals in an official opposition capacity do they want to do that does he want like they'd have to does he want to do that um do they want to take the party in a different direction you know like it would be kind of for them i think they'd have to start to figure out why this happened the way it did do they want to build rankin's leadership build his brand or do they want to say we're going to do something else but think about some of the stumbles that ian rankin had in the campaign i mean before we even got into this campaign he's dealing with a controversy trying to deal with something about his own history those two charges for drunk driving uh in his own past and then day one of the campaign a liberal candidate drops off the ticket and eventually comes out and says she was told to drop off the ticket because of some photos she posted online her social media presence these kinds of things have dogged him through the campaign absolutely and they were all um you know as we say unforced errors these were things that happened that the liberals could have dealt with better that they could have avoided altogether i think in the case of of the candidate selection in dartmouth south the liberals know how to select a candidate and run a nomination and get it through right and so what was up with having she's the candidate now she's not now we you know she's saying they told her what to say like what's going on there that shouldn't happen and so i think yeah like you can look throughout the campaign and say like he had a rough start coming out of the gate um he could have handled the dui thing better um he could have sat down you know in front of a camera and said this is what happened and i've learned a lot from this but he didn't do that it was sort of like we have to we have to pull this out of you one scrap of information after another kind of thing and so that doesn't help when you're trying to build momentum around the campaign and he hasn't had enough time to have nova scotians really trust him he's not stephen mcneill in many ways he's not stephen mcneil but he hasn't been there long enough for people to give him the benefit of the doubt so it was just a it was a rough start for him for sure a rough start for him and a rough start for him so far tonight let's go back to david aiken who's tracking those results the liberals leading in elected now david in 12 ridings trailing behind the pcs at 26 nobody yet getting to 28 though that's the key number that is the key number but right now yeah what david urban pc headquarters is saying is tim houston and the pc should be very encouraged by these early results we're starting to see some polls coming in and again looking promising right now for tim houston not promising foreign ranking why why is what's happening out there this is 2021. look at this blue band through mainland nova scotia forget about halifax look at that blue band through mainland nova scotia 2017 we had a red band from the annapolis valley right up to the eastern shore now 2021 it's crazy close annapolis i mentioned it before stephen mcneil's old riding the liberals are ahead but only by seven points that should not be that close that should be a a slam dunk a victory for uh the liberals i mentioned zach churchill right down there in yarmouth look at that it is super close one vote now mind you we got seven polls in it's going to be a spread here but candace claremont could she beat zach churchill i mean we we're talking about ian rank and potential leadership i thought zach was going to run to replay stephen mcneill quite frankly but yeah who knows right now he's in a dogfight down there in yarmouth um where else are things changing on the eastern shore this was red last time around greg morrow now beating incumbent lloyd hines in guys borough trackity things are changing seven pulls in we have almost what is that almost 800 votes counted so now we're starting to see some trends here's another trend right here eastern shore the incumbent kevin murphy he's losing in a big way after three polls to kent smith of the pcs i'll give you one more shocker folks yeah we know that this part of the province is generally conservative federally that's peter mckay cumberland north used well it's lenore zanz right now remember she used to be the ndp mla now she's the liberal mp running for reelection i'll try not to confuse him here's what i was talking about the big shocker right here that's ana oops that's anna ganesh folks randy delorey the i thought popular minister in both mcniel's government and rankin's government he's running second by a lot four polls of 36 are reporting here but still we've got you know five six hundred votes counted and randy delorey is behind in anaganesh it is all going blue except for elizabeth smith mccroskin in the northumberland strait ridings she is ahead of bill casey uh five polls reporting that is the independent the other that sarah was talking about but right now the story of the night is outside of halifax when we sort of knew this tim hughes from the pc is doing what the the pc party in nova scotia has to do if they're going to win and they pretty much got to run the table in rural and in rural nova scotia and in the small centers of nova scotia and so far today i've there's no i got to point this out the two lunenburgs but lunenburg i think the pcs thought they had a chance at but lunenburg west my goodness there you go uh it looks pretty good too for lunenburg west for becky drewhan lots of change happening red dropping to blue back to you sarah here we go yeah thanks so much david that whole map seems to be turning blue so just drawing your attention back to the ticker the progressive conservatives are now leading and elected in 30 ridings that is into majority territory too soon to tell you who your government will be of course these are very early results from elections nova scotia but the standings as of right now 30 ridings for the pcs liberals leading and elected in nine the ndp in seven and elizabeth smith mccrosson in cumberland north is leading in her own as well we're going to take a short break we'll be back with more results after this [Music] welcome back to decision nova scotia 2021 all of your election results as nova scotians go to their 41st general election thanks for joining us as we guide you through everything that's happening this evening i'm sarah ritchie we want to talk about the results as they've happened so far it's been an hour since the polls closed and as of right now there are early results in we can tell you though that liberal cabinet minister lloyd hines will not return to the legislature in guys bro trackity greg morrow with the pcs will be the mla so this is a big blow to the liberals who are now sitting in second place 12 ridings where they are leading and elected the pc's in leading and elected now in 27 the ndp in 10 elizabeth smith macross and the independent candidate is leading in her riding of cumberland north the pcs need to get to 28 seats so would any other party in order to form a majority government i want to bring back david aiken he's tracking all of the results for us so david in the last couple of minutes just before we went to break the pcs we're leading and elected in 30 now they're back to 27. these are early results they're going to do a little ping-ponging yeah so look at the numbers on your bottom do some math folks pcs have 27 and they need 28 where could they find that that one independent maybe tim houston says hey elizabeth smith macros could come on back into my uh caucus and then he'd have his majority seriously i mean i wonder if something like that could happen uh if they could uh you know make up and patch it up whatever it might be there's cumberland north elizabeth smith macross in seven seven polls in she's got uh what's that about 170 vote lead over bill casey bill case we all know was a conservative federally pc federal liberal now he's a provincial liberal i like billy's good guy but he's losing right now um we talked to the beginning of the night sarah about those three ridings where a little twist of a little neighborhood coming out here redraw the map you end up with a different result i'm going to check back in on those one of those was chest it was chester st margaret's i thought this would go ndp i thought the riding had turned more orange folks in chester folks up st margaret's bay if you take a look at this riding the conservative strength is usually up here around new ross around the christmas tree farms everybody knows for nova scotia but this is a surprise that the conservatives are winning chester st margaret's that there's not a lot of history you'd probably have to go back to the mid 90s to see conservatives winning a riding lake chester st margaret's remember i mentioned this was where the big change was the liberal polls move over to timberly prospect we talked earlier about cole harbor tony entz the incumbent and i saw it that would go more blue because coal harbor has now got more neighborhoods down in the willowdale section that tended to vote uh blue but no doesn't look like it in this case jerome lagmay he's ahead now three polls are in mind you right now it's the ndp liberals in second and daryl johnson in third but if you look at the percentages it's close this riding we're going to be watching a little later on tonight and then there's the one that kept us up all night in 2017. am i going to get it here i think i am yes waverly fall river beaver bank where in 2017 it was back and forth back and forth right until the end of the night finally stephen mcneil got his majority on this one but right now it is turning blue and i mentioned earlier in the night the slight redraw some liberal nitpoles came out and a lit a little bit of of some former conservative polls moved in brian wong is ahead by 10 points with five reporting at this point so those are some of the ridings where there was s<br><!-- wp:image {"id":1776,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} -->rn<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img class="wp-image-1776" src="https://en.videoencontexto.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Decision_Nova_Scotia_Progressive_Conservatives_projected_to_form_government__FUL_Z3dZ2m6vfSk.jpg" alt="Decision Nova Scotia: Progressive Conservatives projected to form government | FULL" /></figure>rn<!-- /wp:image -->[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]