The Current - What are voters thinking across Atlantic Canada?

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

The first wins and losses of next week’s federal election will be announced in Atlantic Canada, where the political landscape has shifted dramatically in recent months. Matt Galloway heads to Halifax to talk to CBC reporters Silas Brown, Peter Cowan and Taryn Grant about what voters want, as part of Crossroads: Coast to Coast with Canadian Voters. 

What's because news, eh? What's because news, bros? It's Canada's funniest news quiz. It's on every week. You can get it on Spotify. Yes, we need them. Follow us. If they're not chickenses. Wow, you're really putting threats in there. Stupid news quiz. Okay, thanks. That was all me. Just kidding. It was real Gollum. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Unlike many other parts of this country, on Prince Edward Island a seat can still be won

or lost at the door. People invite candidates in, sit at the kitchen table as the party's jockey for the four writings up for grabs. And their conversations cover just about everything from tariffs to healthcare. But at the end of the day, affordability apparently is what is on many voters' minds. People can't afford to live. Going to the Solvies grocery store and the cash register said to me the other day, she said, people are actually separating their groceries. I said, what do you mean by that?

And she said, we have families coming to Jamie that actually the stuff they need is in the front of the cart, then they have their shopping bags and the other stuff is behind. So ringing this stuff first and then ringing the other stuff if I have enough money to do it. This conservative candidate Jamie Foxx are talking to people in his riding on PEI. One riding over in Charlottetown, Liberal candidate Sean Casey is hearing something different. For voters there, it all comes down to leadership.

I didn't know how I was going to vote this election, but your leader is really, he's really, for lack of a better word, inspired me. I hope he wins. I'm nervous. I look every day. Yeah, no, I'm hearing a lot of that. He's really resonating. I haven't been excited about an election in probably 30 years.

These are sentiments we've heard across this country as we have gone coast to coast talking to Canadians. In less than a week when we sit down to watch the election results roll in, the first wins and losses will be here in Atlantic Canada, and much of the rest of the country will be watching to see whether what plays out here may play out elsewhere

in Canada. There are a number of writings to watch. And so to fill us in, we are joined by three CBC reporters covering this election. Silas Brown is in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Peter Cowan is in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. And Taryn Grant is with me here in our studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Silas, we'll start with you. Those sentiments we just heard and the door knocking as well. How much of that is ringing true in New Brunswick right now?

I think quite a bit. When I'm talking to people right now and when I'm talking to candidates about what they're hearing, it's those same two things. It's affordability and it's, if you want to call it leadership or Trump and tariffs. I mean, those are the big things that are really dominating the conversation, it seems, not just here but around the country. Can I just ask you, and we'll get into the specifics, but I'll ask you, all three of you broadly, it's the 22nd of April. If we had had this conversation at the beginning of January, it feels like the electoral landscape would have been different. How different would it have been,

Silas? Extremely different. I mean, in New Brunswick, it was looking like there were a couple of seats that were that were going to be foregone conclusions for the conservatives. And and they were really dominating that affordability question. And people here have been they've been struggling. They feel like they're they're behind where they were in the last couple of years. And I think there was a big anti-incumbency vibe out there as was evidenced in our provincial election that we had in the fall. Trevor Burrus Terran, what about for you?

I mean, what did you see? It's interesting. In 2015, people might remember Justin Trudeau and the liberals swept every seat out here. Stephanie McElhau Yeah, red wave in 2015. And interestingly, last week, a conservative candidate here had a news conference. And he was talking about how he looks forward to the conservatives sweeping Atlantic Canada.

And to be honest, it came across as delusional. But a few months ago, it probably would have rung true. And we also had a provincial election here less than six months ago. The Progressive Conservatives in Nova Scotia had a supermajority victory. That's a real term that we use in the legislature here. They won two thirds. They're just really big. Exactly. They got two thirds of the seats and they ran largely on an anti-Trudeau sentiment.

You know, the liberals in Nova Scotia were almost wiped off the map, two seats out of 55 in our provincial legislature. And it looked like that was indicating how the next federal election was going to go. But now here we are with a bunch of liberal incumbents who are looking very safe and a bunch of conservative incumbents who are really on rocky ground.

Same goes in Newfoundland and Labrador, Peter? Absolutely. You know, back in December or so, people were talking about, would the conservatives be able to sweep all seven of the ridings in Newfoundland and Labrador? You know, right now, in the lead up to the election, there was just one conservative here and six liberals.

And in fact, most of the liberals decided not to run again. Only one of the incumbents is actually on the ballot again. The other five said, you know what, maybe this is the time to leave. And the conservatives were, you know, having contested nomination races. People were really wanting to run for the party. And now things have sort of flipped. People are saying, well, is the one conservative going to hang on in this?

You know, once we see things shake out on election night. Taron, that was the same story here in Nova Scotia. You had Sean Fraser on the same day that Christia Freeland, like the same morning that Christia Freeland was announcing that essentially she had withdrawn support, put in the knife into Justin Trudeau. He said he was going to spend more time with his family. He's now spending less time with his family. He's back on the campaign trail, Sean Fraser.

That's right. I think it was day two of the election campaign. He made this about face and said, you know, it's the time to serve his country. And he got the phone call from Mark Carney and changed his mind. So what are the big issues here in Nova Scotia? What is top of mind for people, as you understand it? Well, I mean, we hear the same things as, as we're hearing across the country about affordability and tariffs and threats to our sovereignty. Of course, we hear it a little bit, I would say that it's sort of divided along party lines, that we hear more about tariffs and sovereignty from liberal candidates and liberal leaning voters,

and we hear more about affordability from conservatives and their steadfast supporters. But there are also a few interesting issues that are more local that are coming up as ballot box issues. Like what? Like the fishery. This is, I mean, it's a bit of an evergreen issue in Nova Scotia, but especially in the last five years or so, the lobster fishery has been in turmoil for a couple of reasons, one being regulation of the lobster fishery. Just the coolest notes for listeners, there's some Mi'kmaq fishermen who have been asserting

their treaty right to harvest lobster in some of the most lucrative fishing areas in the province. And they're doing this outside of the regulated commercial fishing season. Commercial fishermen have been very dissatisfied with the way the Trudeau government has been handling this in allowing unregulated fishing to happen. This was a big issue in the 2021 election and in fact, Liberal fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan lost her seat over it. The issue is unresolved and so it is once again coming up for people in southwest Nova Scotia who are wondering whether the conservatives are going to fix it or if things might change under a Carney liberal government.

Silas, Mark Carney was in Fredericton last night. He was on PEI earlier and in Truro as well earlier in the day. What do people in New Brunswick do you think? We heard a little bit of that, but what do you think people in New Brunswick are looking for from their next government? Well, I think they're looking to somebody who's speaking to their anxieties right now,

which, as I mentioned, are really revolved around affordability, which I mean, if you look at New Brunswick, like the rest of the country, we've seen a pretty unprecedented rise in the cost of living. You know, Fredericton, where I'm sitting right now, has a vacancy rate of, you know, at or under 1%. And that has had an incredible impact on housing prices. But also, the province is very exposed when it comes to tariffs.

Um. Was it like 90% of the exports of New Brunswick go to the United States? Upwards of 90%. Yeah, upwards of 90%. Um, so we're very dependent in our export market. I mean, it's 80% of our forestry products go down there, the 80% of the oil that, uh, is

refined at the Irving oil refinery in St. John 80% of the oil that is refined at the Irving Oil Refinery in St. John goes south of the border and it's a very integrated border here. I mean we have a lot of border towns and sister communities that are, there's marriages that run across border lines and so there's a lot of anxiety about what that relationship looks like moving forward, what impact it has economically if there are further tariffs imposed or even with the current tariffs that have been imposed. So is your sense that people are looking for somebody to stand up to Trump or to try to figure out how to work with the United States?

I mean, it's two sides of the same coin in some ways, but you know what I mean, that that can be portrayed in different ways. It depends on who you talk to, right? I mean, I think some people would have more of an appetite for figuring out how to salvage things as much as possible. And then there's a lot of people like we're hearing from around the rest of the country who say, no, we need to stand up for ourselves and ensure that we don't allow ourselves to cave to what is a threat to our economy

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So get your TBR list ready and listen to Off the Shelf wherever you get your podcasts. Peter, what about in Newfoundland and Labrador? I mean, we were talking to Taryn about the fishing industry. That's obviously still a huge part of life there. But the energy sector, which we talk about perhaps more broadly as a nation, when we're talking about Alberta and Saskatchewan, has a huge role to play in Newfoundland and Labrador as well.

Absolutely. It's important because it provides a lot of jobs to people here. It's important because it helps fill the provincial coffers and provide services. And it's also important because some of the folks here do travel back and forth to Alberta. So, you know, one of the reasons that we saw One Ride and Go conservative in the last election was over the issue of energy. Voters were concerned about the liberal stance. What's interesting now is of course under Mark Carney, their position has shifted. We've seen the carbon tax disappear.

We've seen them being more open to oil and gas development. The issues are different here when it comes to energy, like pipelines aren't an issue because our oil projects are sitting offshore. Tankers can come up, collect the oil, get it to market, so that's a lot easier. But these are also big projects, like the Bay to Nord project is going to take billions of dollars to develop offshore. So companies tend to work on a longer time horizon on these. So, you know, people are worried, okay, are companies going to want to explore. Are they going to want to be able to invest? Are they going to have that certainty that if they're going to spend those billions that there's just going to be an environment where they're going to be able to still make

money, you know, within the environmental regime that comes with it. So, but the interesting thing here that I'm hearing from a lot of people is as we've seen the policy differences between the different parties sort of shrink, when I talk to voters, what I'm hearing is it comes down to kind of trust. Like, do you trust that the liberals are going to deliver on energy policy after years of having a different tact, that Mark Carney will change things? And then the flip side is, do you trust that Pierre Polyev and the conservatives will actually stand up to Trump?

And a lot of the worry that people have, you know, when I talk to voters, they say, well, he seems a little too much like Trump. I don't like some of the way he talks or that language or the way he comes across. So for some voters, the trust just isn't there, even though the policy differences aren't all that extreme between these two parties. How much does that play out in terms of local issues versus national concerns and the role of retail politics Peter? I mean when people knocking on someone's door but also being able to talk to their elected representative not just at election time but be able to to meet them at the market to meet them at the grocery store to see them on the street

and be able to you know share a piece of to meet them at the grocery store, to see them on the street, and be able to share a piece of their mind. You have to have that sense of trust at the most intimate level in some ways. Absolutely. In Newfoundland and Labrador, people expect their MPs to be accessible. They expect them to show up at the fireman's award banquet and the chicken dinner in the Legion Hall.

They expect to see their members of parliament, not just at election time, but in between as well, which is why a lot of the candidates are putting a lot of miles and a lot of shoe leather doing the door knocking because, you know, that was going back to central Newfoundland and Clifford Small, like that's how he won the last election was he knocked on more doors than the liberal incumbent. And people want to shake your hand, look you in the eye. Do they trust that you're going to be able to deliver the promises? Are you going to stand up for them and the issues they care about?

So, yeah, in a small province where, you know, it's small province population-wise, big geographically, a lot of candidates are, you know, making sure that they hit all those small communities to try and put that FaceTime in. Francis, do you see the same thing here? We got a note from Francis who lives in Victoria County, Nova Scotia, who wrote that in Cape Breton, often people don't vote strategically. They would rather go with a credible local candidate,

even though they may not like the leader. So Taryn, does that make sense? Absolutely. To hear that the people, you have to have that relationship if you're trying to earn their vote. Taryn Leeson Yeah. And it's interesting because I think in Nova Scotia, it would be fair to say that the voters here are sort of fickle at a federal level.

You know, they'll go to different parties more than you would see out west or, you know, where it's more staunchly conservative, for example. And in Nova Scotia, people care a little bit more, I think, than in the rest of the country about who their representative actually is. So I was in King's Hands last week, which is a writing that encompasses a lot of the valley. Cody Blois is the liberal incumbent there. And he, even though the liberals are having this surge in popularity right now, he does

not seem to be relying solely on the liberal brand to carry him through this election. He has signs up that are not liberal red, they're burgundy in color, they don't say liberal on them. Yep, and they say farmers for Cody. He does have the liberal branded red signs as well, but the farmers for Cody signs are playing into the part of his constituency where folks are probably small C conservative But they they like Cody Blois as a person as a representative And so he's trying to encourage them to vote for him rather than the liberal brand Silas you see that as well in New Brunswick people saying, you know, I'm my own person and you can vote for me You don't have to worry about ties to a party or perhaps a leader that you might

have mixed feelings on. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I mean, something that you'll see frequently here is people who are candidates a couple of times, um, even after maybe they've, they've won, they've been an MP and they lost, I mean down here in Fundy Royal, which is the area in between Moncton and St. John, mostly rural, the liberals obviously won that in 2015 in the sweep. We're seeing candidates return who were MPs. Yeah, so I think that is an important factor is this is who I am as a

person. You know me, you can trust me, but I think what Taryn says is right and plays out in New Brunswick as well. People are fickle. Is there one writing, I mean, as I said, people across the country will be watching because they want to know whether what's happening here may repeat itself or at the very least tell a story about what's going to happen repeat itself or at the very least tell a story about what's going to happen elsewhere in the country later on in the evening on Monday. So is there a rioting, Silas, in the last few minutes

that we have that you're paying close attention to, that people should be paying close attention to? Yeah, I think the Fredericton-Ora-Mokto rioting that was held by Jenica Atwin, who won it as a green in 2021, or sorry, in 2019 rather, and then crossed the floor to the liberals and won it as a green in 2021 or sorry in 2019 rather and then crossed the floor to the Liberals and won it again and in 2021 she's no longer running. This was looked this was a very tight three-way race between the greens and the conservatives the last time out and that is going to be really

interesting to see how it's going to shake out. Since 1980, there's only been three times that this riding has gone against the government. So I don't think you can quite call it a bellwether, but it definitely seems to go with the government. And here you have a local musician who is a childhood friend of new liberal premier Susan Holt and David Miles who is running for the liberals. And then you have a former Tory MLA, Brian McDonald, running for the conservatives, who's been campaigning here for a year and a half. Plus, you gotta wonder how many votes

can the Greens still pull with their candidate, Pan-Allan LeBlanc? So it's gonna be really interesting to see how that all starts to shake out on election night. Peter, what about for you in Newfoundland and Labrador? Is there one writing, I mean, they're all important, but is there one writing that you think people should pay attention to, again, as it might tell a story about what may unfold on Monday night?

Well, yeah, we have the advantage that our polls close half an hour before everyone else. So we have half an hour where everyone in the country is busy looking at Newfoundland and Labrador. And one that I'm going to be carefully looking at is St. John's East. This is the only liberal incumbent, Joanne Thompson, who was fisheries minister under Carney. And this is a rematch. She's up against a fairly strong NDP candidate, Mary Shortall, who was a Labour leader. She's also president of the National Party and the NDP has really been trying to up her profile. Jagmeet Singh made lots of trips here before the election to try and bring some attention to her.

The NDP has held it in the past. This has gone back and forth over the last 10 years between the Liberals and the NDP. So, you know, we're looking at an election night. Can the NDP actually pick up more votes? And if we see them strong in this riding, it may be a sign that maybe they're not quite as weak as some of the polling has suggested. But the conservatives are also a big factor in this time as well.

They have a well-known candidate, David Brazel, who was interim leader of the provincial party. He was provincial MHA for more than a decade representing part of this riding. So he brings his own profile as well. You know, the party may not have the same coat tails that it did in December. So if we're going to see, uh, some of these seats flipping, it's going to be on the popularity of the candidates themselves.

So David Brazel has been out there trying, uh, hoping to try and flip it. So, you know, this could be a good, if we see the liberals in trouble in St. John's East, uh, then that could be a sign that there's a lot of other writings across the country that might not be looking as great for them. So interesting. Taryn, last minute to you.

One writing that you're paying close attention to. Something interesting happening in each of Nova Scotia's 11 writings, but if listeners are going to remember one, it's South Shore St. Margaret's. This is one where the fishery issue that I described earlier is very much alive. It's where conservative Rick Perkins beat out a fisheries minister, Bernadette Jordan, last time. He looks to be in trouble this time. He was a real attack dog in Ottawa for his term on the fisheries issue, but now the liberal

wave seems to be coming after him. And the liberal candidate there is a grade nine school teacher who was nominated back in December, which if you remember back then the Liberals were really tanking. So she's obviously very loyal to the party and probably was not anticipating winning in this election, but now she has a real shot. Her campaign team is very confident at this point. So I'm going to be watching to see what happens there. We will all be watching your reporting as the election unfolds. It feels like it's been a long election and it's also been a short election and it's almost over. We'll all be watching your reporting as the election unfolds. Feels like it's been a long election and it's also been a short election and it's almost

over. We'll talk more about this next week. Thank you all for being here. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thanks. Silas Brown is a reporter based in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Peter Cowan reporting from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

And Taryn Grant here with me in Halifax. They're all covering the election for the CBC. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.