Boissonnault inquiry. NS poll. Horgan remembered.  November 13th 2024

Majority Favours Tim Houston, PCs Lead Everywhere: Nova Scotia

Over half of eligible Nova Scotian voters who have made up their minds, so far, would prefer incumbent Progressive Conservative premier Tim Houston stay in the role, according to a new poll by MQO Research. *Poll has a sample size of 396 -- tough in small jurisdictions like NS for a poll the pollster itself is paying for to get much larger samples. So I'd be cautious on some of the regional numbers. This is yet another poll, though, that has the NDP in front of the Liberals. And yet, the NDP could finish second in popular vote but not finish second in seats. That's because their support is highly concentrated in HRM where they MQO finds them well ahead of the Liberals. The NDP are also ahead of the Liberals on the South Shore (Lunenburg most likely). But the Liberals are ahead of the NDP every where else in the province. Still: New Democrats close to the campaign are very excited about the way the things are going and feel momentum is on their side. And, for what it's worth, an NDP insider says the campaign has already hit its fundraising targets -- with two weeks left to go.

Nova Scotia PCs extend lead as campaign hits halfway mark

Abacus Data also has a new Nova Scotia poll out today. It too finds Tim Houston's PCs are in a good place to repeat their majority and while Abacus finds Zach Churchill's Liberals slightly ahead of Claudia Chender's NDP -- the narrative of this election, at this point, seems to be reinforced with the two polls: The battle here is for who will be Official Opposition. The sample size in the Abacus poll is 600, bigger than MQO's but Abacus did not publish any tables -- the raw data -- while MQO did, in fact, provide a link to its tables. The absence of those tables makes it difficult for a reader to assess the data. For example, if you look at the MQO tables, and compare "unweighted" vs "weighted", you'll note that the "unweighted" number is significantly below the "weighted" number for "North Shore" voters and for "Boomers (70+)". That means the pollster has had to "weight up" significantly for those two categories which increases the potential for results that would be different if you polled all of that population. So, if I was particularly interested in any data sets involving those two groups, I might be a bit more cautious than the category of "Halifax" voters which is overweighted in the raw data. We cannot make those assessments of Abacus' data because the pollster did not publish tables.

Bottom line: The good news is -- we have two polls showing very similar trends. And, again, while it sometimes happens that a campaign insider will tell you their data does not match the data of the public pollsters, none of the campaign insiders I've spoken to in the last week would take issue with these findings. -DA

N.S. Tory campaign staffer resigns after alleged vote-buying with Tim’s gift cards

Peter Zwicker, the Tory campaign manager for the constituency of Lunenburg, N.S., resigned Tuesday morning after the Nova Scotia Liberals lodged a complaint with election officials about the party giving gift cards to people at a drive-thru on Saturday. I would hope that it would take more than a bribe of a Tim Horton's coffee to get any of the fine folks of Lunenburg to switch their vote but still, a real dumb own-goal by the PCs on the day the PCs wanted the headlines from their campaign to be about a small business tax cut.

After keeping her distance, Liberal premier ready to work with Trudeau

During this fall's election campaign, the Liberal name was noticeably absent from many of [NB Liberal leader and Premier Susan] Holt's campaign materials. Trudeau and Holt both avoided commenting directly on that strategy, with the prime minister instead slamming conservative-minded premiers — including former New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs — for turning down federal funding that would help citizens.

New Brunswick premier confirms her Liberal government will draft carbon pricing plan

Holt said her government would remove the province’s four-cent-a-litre gas tax and then submit to Ottawa a “made in New Brunswick climate plan.”

Canada, U.S. should eye own trade deal if no Mexican tariffs on China: Ford

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Mexico "shouldn't have a seat at the table" in upcoming North American free trade talks if it doesn't match tariffs on Chinese imports.

Former B.C. Premier John Horgan dies following battle with cancer

The 65-year-old has been in the hospital for much of the past five months after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in June.

'John from Langford' one of the most popular premiers in B.C. history

John Horgan was that rare politician who got more popular in office. He became B.C. premier in 2017 with a minority government. In 2020, he led the B.C. NDP to the biggest majority government in its history. Polls showed he was the most popular premier in Canada. Another good obit worth reading about one of the most remarkable political actors I've known in my time.