The Current - What matters to Nova Scotians at the ballot box?

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Nova Scotians go to the polls Tuesday, in a snap election called late last month. Guest host Peter Armstrong talks to voters about what’s shaping their decision, from health care to housing.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. We all know that governments sometimes pick a date that they think benefits them, snap election, high in the polls. That was Nova Scotia progressive conservative leader Tim Houston, not long after being elected as premier in 2021. Extolling the virtues of his government's first order of business in office, passing a law setting a fixed election date in that province. Houston and his party decided their new law would send voters to the polls on July 15th

of 2025, except it didn't. Houston called the snap election late last month, and voters will be casting their ballots tomorrow, with polls suggesting the PCs are on their way to a healthy majority. Michael Gorman covers politics for the CBC in Nova Scotia. Michael, good morning. Good morning. Tim Houston sounded pretty committed to a fixed date in that clip. What happened? Well, he was committed to it until he wasn't. It was last June that he first mused about maybe not necessarily sticking to the date,

depending on what's going on. And what we saw after that was him ramping up something that he was doing fairly steadily throughout his mandate anyway, which is lashing out at Ottawa. There are a bunch of issues where his government and the federal government have not exactly been simpatico. And he started ramping those up and discussion about those. But he also spent a lot of time trying to tie Nova Scotia liberal leader Zach Churchill to his federal counterpart, the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to the point that, you know, in the dying days leading up to the election call, he sent out a fundraising letter that was lumping the two of them together

and showing that while the two of them supported a price on carbon, he did not. He's played that to a fairly successful degree based on what we're seeing in polls. And then, you know, really in the lead up to the election, we also saw the traditional things governments do in the lead up to a snap election that Mr. Houston, during the debate in that clip you played, suggested he was looking to avoid with a fixed election date. You know, and I want to get to this tactic that not just, we're not just seeing in Nova Scotia, but across the country of tying liberal provincial leaders to Justin Trudeau and the federal liberals, but just still on the fixed election date. The other parties saw an opportunity to be critical

here. They went after Houston for going back on his word. It doesn't seem like the public has cared very much about that. How has he sort of combated that? Well, it was an issue for the first few days, largely because he had to respond to breaking this promise. And I think that what happened was that he and his team weighed the pros and cons of having to deal with that in the early days of an election. And they calculated that really after a few days, he'd stop getting a lot of questions about that because the focus would shift to policy planks. And that's what happened. And frankly, I think that the general public, at least the people who are going out to vote, have bigger fish to fry. You

know, we have major structural issues with the health care system. There are major issues with the housing system in this province, as there are across the country. And I think that those are the things that are front of mind to people, as opposed to the date of this election. And as you say, it has sometimes felt like Houston's running more against Justin Trudeau than Zach Churchill. What have the PCs been able to do to tie the provincial liberal leader to the federal liberal leader? Carbon tax is the thing that he has pressed upon the most. And what's interesting about it is Zach Churchill is on record both in the legislative chamber and out in public many, many times saying that he doesn't agree with carbon tax either. many, many times saying that he doesn't agree with carbon tax either. The difference between the two of them when it comes down to that is Mr. Churchill has recognized that the federal

government has the right at the moment to impose a carbon tax if provinces won't put their own price on carbon. And Mr. Houston has resisted any type of consumer price on carbon. And so rather than having that nuanced policy conversation, Mr. Houston has taken a very firm view that no price is the only thing he's willing to support. And largely, I've got to say that's been successful in a province where there are a lot of people who are mindful of the price of a liter of gas because they live in rural communities that require them to drive and fishermen who require fuel to fill their boats and so on. And in case anybody across the country has forgotten, it was the issue around carbon tax on home heating that really blew up in Nova Scotia.

I guess that was the end of last year. Yes, it was. And it wasn't long after that, the feds backtracked on that and put a holiday on that. Okay. So we've got that sort of spread of running on the one hand against Zach Churchill and, you know, sort of tying him to Justin Trudeau. The tactic seems to have worked in Nova Scotia, but like last month, right next door in New Brunswick, voters elected a liberal government there throwing the PCs out of office. Do you have a sense of how these two elections have differed from one another? Well, I think they're different in the sense of who was looking for re-election. Mr. Higgs was

looking for a third term and frankly was not very popular. Mr. Houston's looking for only his second term and by all accounts has been popular throughout that first term. Those first three and a half years, he's been well ahead of his rivals when it comes to polling around preference for premier. And so as one person I was speaking to yesterday put it, Mr. Houston's not lost the new car smell with voters. And that to me is the big difference. big and really important issues in this election. I was down at my old alma mater of Acadia University in the Annapolis Valley last month, where people are still talking about healthcare and the hospital in that part of the province. The PCs campaigned initially on fixing healthcare.

That was last time around. Can we even assess how they've done? Because they're not even all the way through their first term. Well, it depends on who you ask. I very much view this as a person-by-person case. If you're somebody who, and there are many people who in this province don't have a family doctor, or you're waiting a long time for a specialist referral,

or as one woman who made national news noted, you're fighting the province in court to cover costs to get treatment out of province. You're probably not feeling very good about the health care system. But people are getting attached and the Tories have created new entries to at least seeing someone. It may not be a family doctor, but could be a pharmacist. They've expanded scope of practice for most healthcare professionals. If you're fairly healthy and you're benefiting from that, then you're probably feeling better about the state of the system. I mean, the fact is, is Tim Houston's done one very clever thing here. And

what he's done is he's positioned himself and the way he's approached the healthcare system in a way that prevented his opponents from characterizing him in his handling of the system first. He's said all along, it's going to take time and it's going to cost a lot of money. He shied away from the suggestion that maybe he could get this done in just one mandate. And so he was talking about that in that context, even before his opponents could jump on him for the state of the system. And so I think that by the time they did, the general public really in the last few years here has finally clued into the idea that healthcare is not just potentially in trouble in Nova Scotia.

The problems we face here are national and international problems. And so the idea that anybody's going to fix it in one term seems fairly far fetched. The other big issue that I've been reading about is the population boom in Nova Scotia. You guys had just a flood of people. I know tons of people from Ontario that have moved out to Nova Scotia since the pandemic. And I've been reporting on the housing crisis across the country for the last little while. And nationally, we've started to see rents come down. Nova Scotia is an outlier in that. Rents are way up. How are the parties lining up to address those sort of commingled issues there? Well, this is a very interesting thing to me

in this election because while on healthcare, Tim Houston's been able to use the line, I didn't break it, but I'm working on fixing it. What we've seen with our housing market here really has exploded during his mandate. And yet there doesn't seem to be a lot of blowback for him on that front. Mr. Houston's housing policies in his platform are kind of few and far between. Basically, what he has said is we created a housing strategy in our first mandate.

We've planted the seeds. We're going to see the benefits of those over the next mandate. Give us more time to see it through. The Liberals and the NDP, meanwhile, have argued that the PCs have done precious little to deal with, as you say, those stubbornly low vacancy rates and rents that really continue to go up despite the fact that the province has a rent cap. Both the Liberals and the NDP have talked about building much more housing, truly affordable housing, as they put it, as opposed to market rate affordable housing. So they've talked about expanding co-ops and partnering with nonprofits to build more housing that's more in line with up to and not exceeding one-third of a person's income. Now, whether or not that's going to work, I guess we'll see tomorrow.

But polls indicate so far that they've just not really caught on with people on that issue. For sure. And just one last question, zooming out here, Michael, you know, we've talked about the anti-federal liberal sentiment that the PCs are leveraging here, but what do you, what will you be looking for in the results of this election that will, might tell us something about the federal liberals chances in the province and Atlantic Canada more broadly when they eventually go to the polls sometime over the course of the next year? I mean, personally, Peter, I don't think we need tomorrow's election to know how things

are looking for the federal liberals in Nova Scotia. I won't presume to know as well what's going on in the other three Atlantic provinces as I do here. But I can tell you that party is not popular here right now, and I would be surprised if they held a single seat after the next federal election. All right, lots to watch for. Michael, really appreciate this.

Thank you. You're welcome. Michael Gorman covers politics for the CBC in Nova Scotia. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs.

And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. From housing to health care, affordability to immigration, there's a lot for voters to grapple with as they head to the polls in Nova Scotia tomorrow. We have two voters with us this morning to share their thoughts. Samantha Kroll is a museum director and mother of two who lives in the lobster capital of Canada, Barrington, Nova Scotia. And Nolan Greenough is a mechanic and the youngest candidate to run

for the office of mayor at the age of 23 in the recent Halifax municipal election. Good morning to you both. Hello, hello. Good morning. Nolan, if I can, I'd like to start with you. How did Tim Houston's decision to call this snap election, how did that sit with you? I'm not a really big fan of it, right? Like it was, what, his first thing when he got in office that he passed? It just feels really dishonorable to like turn around on that and, yeah, and throw it out the window because it's advantageous. You know what I mean?

I do. Uh, and, and so if that sort of upsets you, does that sort of rank in as, as issues in this campaign or, or what are you really focused on in terms of picking your vote? I mean, frankly, PC wasn't really on my radar to start with. Um, I consider myself like pretty left leaning overall. overall um my number one issue like personally um you know i'm a healthy young person i don't really go to the doctor very often so i'm lucky enough in that regard um but like my number one issue is labor and i haven't seen anybody really comment on that like our rights as as workers and uh you know, I think Nova Scotia has the least statutory holidays in the whole country, right? That makes it very difficult to get in, you know,

to work if you take a bus because the drivers are on holiday and, you know, you still have a full shift that day. Samantha, what about you? What are the key issues for you in this election? Well, near and dear to my heart is arts and culture. So I work in the sector and I have seen one increase provincially for core funding in museums and arts and culture organizations since I think 2008. So that's very important to me because I recognize that we play a big role in tourism and tourism being a $3 billion revenue industry in Nova Scotia and employing in excess of 50,000 Nova Scotians.

So that's right at the top of the pile, but I guess healthcare would be a very close second. You're in Barrington. For those who don't know, it's right on the sort of southern tip of Nova Scotia, beautiful part of the province. Tell me about the community and what you're hearing about people, what they want out of this election.

The things that I'm kind of hearing, and my scope isn't quite as broad, kind of keep to myself a little bit, but healthcare seems to be number one cost of living, again, right up there. I see a lot of comments online. I hear a lot of comments, you know, just throughout the community, you know, healthcare, more access to doctors, investing in our rural hospitals, access to doctors, investing in our rural hospitals, and then just cost of living,

you know, food security, sustainable, affordable housing. That's the most that I'm hearing. You say you like to keep to yourself, but I do have to ask, I see in my notes here, have I got this right? Did you dress up as a lobster last week for an event? What was going on there? Yes. So we lit our lobster pot Christmas tree. I think we were the first community in Nova Scotia, perhaps, to have a lobster pot Christmas tree because we're the lobster capital of Canada. And we have Lucy the lobster, who is our little mascot. She kind of replaced on Groundhog Day. She tells us if we're going to see more winter or an early spring.

And we have a brand new costume for Lucy. And because my very close friend is in charge of all of the marketing for the municipality of Barrington, she asked, I answered, and yes, I spent a couple of hours in a very warm lobster costume making children smile. So I'm okay with it. All right. Glad to hear it. Just sticking with you for a second, Samantha, Michael Gorman, I don't know if you heard him talking about, part of our conversation was about how the

PC's really campaigned on healthcare the last time around. How would you rate their progress? Personally, I'm pleased with what I've seen so far. As far, I have a daughter who is a nurse at the Children's Hospital Halifax. And so she's, you know, pretty happy with, with the investments that she's seen. There's still, you know, room to grow. That was, he was honest about that from the beginning. I've seen a lot of changes with, you know, bonuses to RNs that are to stay in, you know, the LPN tuition waiving, things like that. So I'm encouraged by what I've seen. It's the most that I've seen since I moved back here in 2007. And we've had every party in power at one point or another throughout

that. So I just, you know, doctor retention is big for this area and it's investing in our, you know, healthcare locally because I find that a little bit frustrating here, but I do see improvements. Nolan, housing affordability has obviously been a huge one. Nationally low vacancy rates and high rents in your province. How has that personally impacted you and your community in Halifax? Well, when we were kind of, I used to live in Spryfield a few years ago with my mother. It's kind of like a low-income area. And as we started to see more people, more and more people entering, you know, the city and the province, rent rates went up, right? And all of a sudden, our little unit that we were paying 700 and change

for, for three bedrooms, the one next door to us was going for, I think, $1,800 a month, right? And when you have that on the go, you kind of, you know, you worry every day if the rent cap is going to go away and you can't afford to live here anymore. Right. Now we're lucky to be out of that now, but I know that we're not the only ones that have had to deal with that. And there's certainly people dealing with that and worse these days. Right. So, uh, yeah, like personally, that, that has been something that's impacted me a lot. Like I'm lucky to be out of it now, but it's not a comfy situation seeing it happen, right? And if I've got this right, you managed to buy a home at 22 years old. How did you pull that off? So what we did was it was me, my fiance, my mom, and my brother, the four of us went in together on a rent-to-own agreement,

my brother, the four of us went in together on a rent to own agreement, which essentially it, you pay a little bit extra every month and that goes into a down payment for, you know, whatever term down the line. So it took the four of us to put in on a one-story house in Dartmouth. I believe the final sale price is going to be around $500,000. I want to ask you something, Noel. You just ran in the local election, running for mayor in that election. Can you just give me a sense of how engaged you think voters are right now, especially young voters in the province? In this particular election, I can tell you, I haven't really seen like anything about it outside of my very specific,

like political follows that I have from, from like the mayor stuff. Right. But, you know, like a lot of this, like kind of snuck up even on me, like I didn't know until this past week that election day was tomorrow. Right. Like a lot of this stuff wasn't really put in our face, I didn't know until this past week that election day was tomorrow, right? Like a lot of this stuff wasn't really put in our face the way that we expect things to be put in our face this, you know, this day and age, right? So I'd say that engagement is very low on this, at least among young people, especially with the voter cards not coming out. I wonder if I can put you both on the spot. Nolan, how are you planning to vote tomorrow?

I'm personally planning to vote NDP. There's definitely a place for, you know, centre and right parties, but I don't think that's where I want my vote to be. Samantha, what about you? Have you made up your mind? Not completely, but if I'm honest, I would say that I'm leaning in the direction of the successes that I have seen and the engagement with our local MLA and our neighboring local MLA who used to be our MLA.

I'm quite trusting of them and I'm pleased with what I'm seeing. But again, that doesn't align to federal politics for me. I am really quite left-leaning. Gotcha. Listen, thank you both. This has been really helpful for me to wrap my head around what's going to happen there tomorrow. Really appreciate it. No worries. Thank you very much. Samantha Kroll is a museum director in Barrington, Nova Scotia. Nolan Greeno is a mechanic who lives in the Woodlawn area of Dartmouth.