Liberals aim to turn Atlantic region red again

Party eyes 2015 encore, initiates campaign plan to win back lost seats

OTTAWA—In 2015, the Liberals swept all 32 seats in Atlantic Canada, a repudiation not just of Stephen Harper’s majority Conservatives, but also a stunning upset for New Democrats, who saw some of their most beloved MPs kicked to the electoral curb that year.

That night, when the region turned red, it was clear the Liberals were on their way to a majority. But when blue, orange and green popped up in 2019, it was also clear they’d lost it.

And, in the words of Green party Leader Annamie Paul last week, they appear “hell bent” on getting it back.

An obvious sign was welcoming Green MP Jenica Atwin to join their team, a move widely understood to ensure the Liberals get her Fredericton seat back, one of six in the region they lost in 2019.

How they’ll try to win back the others and keep seats they already hold is a plan now being rolled out in earnest.

Earlier last week, the Liberals stood up a targeted Atlantic Canada operations team. Campaign co-chairs have been announced for every province, and former Fundy Royal MP Alaina Lockhart has taken a job as the party’s director of Atlantic political operations.

Saturday marked the first contested nomination vote in the country for the party too, in the Newfoundland and Labrador riding of St. John’s East. Joanne Thompson, who runs a local community health centre, won over lawyer Michael Duffy.

From 1997 to 2008, the riding was held by former Progressive Conservative turned Conservative Norman Doyle, then by the NDP’s Jack Harris until 2015, then by the Liberals for a single term and then back again to Harris.

The bouncing around reflects the political landscape writ large in the region, said Harris: while there are pockets of staunch right-wing support, the vast majority of voters place themselves along a progressive spectrum.

“The Atlantic is a little more egalitarian and collectivist in its thinking,” he said. Harris isn’t running again, opening the door for the riding to swing back Liberal once more.

A recent Abacus poll suggests room for manoeuvring for all parties come election time in the Atlantic. In the survey, the Liberals were at 46 per cent, the Conservatives at 30 per cent, the NDP at 15 per cent and the Greens at 10.

In luring Atwin, the Liberals are hoping for an echo effect, said Dominic LeBlanc, one of the party’s longest-serving members of Parliament in the Atlantic, and the person who helped broker the deal with Atwin. “It sends a message in other constituencies where there has been an increase in Green support,” he said.

But bringing her over was also a reflection of another political element at play in the Atlantic: the popularity of a local candidate can often mean more than the party’s national stature.

Internal polls, LeBlanc said, pointed out that Atwin had more individual support in the riding than the local Liberal candidate from 2019, and her profile had continued to rise despite challenges caused by the pandemic.

Which is also why losing some of the Liberals’ long-standing incumbents in other Atlantic ridings now makes those seats harder to hold, LeBlanc added.

Gone from the ballot this election are Wayne Easter in his P.E.I. riding of Malpeque, Geoff Regan in Halifax West, and Pat Finnigan in New Brunswick’s Miramichi — Grand Falls.

Liberal support in that riding dropped 10 points in 2019, and Finnigan won it by just 436 votes.

Running for the Conservatives this time is Jake Stewart, a four-term Progressive Conservative member of the New Brunswick legislature and former Aboriginal affairs minister.

He’s among the local stars the Tories have recruited in the region so far. Others include former P.E.I. Liberal cabinet minister Doug Currie, and former Saint John mayor Mel Norton.

Putting together a campaign machine for the Atlantic has been relatively simple for the Tories: the party’s executive director, president, campaign chair, communications director and the head of their fundraising arm all come from Nova Scotia.

Leader Erin O’Toole also has strong ties to the region: he did some of his military service in Nova Scotia, attended Dalhousie law school and his wife, Rebecca, is from just outside Halifax.

While personality politics will play a role in all campaigns, there are specific ballot-box issues in the region too.

Much like local MPs have a higher profile in ridings, so, too, does the federal government, Leblanc said. “People in Atlantic Canada have a different perspective of how the government of Canada can help them as compared to other parts of the country,” he said.

Immigration, regional airports and the fisheries sector are all central to economic growth and all three require the direct participation of the federal government.

There’s also the tourism industry.

The sector has been crippled by the pandemic, and while federal programs like the wage subsidy and Canada Emergency Response Benefit have helped, those programs will soon start scaling back.

The New Democrats — whose pressure in the Commons helped make those programs more substantive — have seized on the looming cuts and that’s a message that will resonate with Atlantic voters, Harris said.

“We have to make the case as well these programs were effective in large measure because we forced them to be so effective,” he said.

The Conservatives are taking another direction. In a recent speech to the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, O’Toole said direct supports for the industry will form part of his party’s pitch. “We’re looking at ways to incentivize travel and tourism once vaccines are deployed and lockdowns lifted,” he said in a virtual appearance.

Between a strong economic message and their personal connections, the Conservatives seek to hold the four seats they do have in the region, and see at least three or four more ridings as potential pick-ups.

But they’ve also sidelined a potential asset the Liberals appear ready to exploit: Peter MacKay.

The long-time Conservative MP and cabinet minister from Nova Scotia, who also for a time ran the federal Progressive Conservatives, lost to O’Toole in the party’s leadership race last year.

MacKay had run on his PC credentials, O’Toole promising a more “true blue approach,” though upon winning promised his party was a home for all.

Except MacKay’s offer to run again as an MP was rebuffed.

The Liberals will seize upon that during the federal campaign, said LeBlanc, by arguing that MacKay’s departure proves O’Toole’s Conservatives have become far more right wing than Atlantic voters ought to tolerate.

“There is no ‘progressive’ in the federal party,” LeBlanc said.