HALIFAX — Nova Scotia voters will head to the polls months earlier than expected after Premier Tim Houston called a snap election Sunday for Nov. 26.

Houston did not speak to reporters after a short visit with the province’s lieutenant governor. Arthur LeBlanc at his official residence in downtown Halifax. He quickly hopped on a large, bright blue campaign bus emblazoned with his image on the side and the words “Make it Happen.”

The prime minister was due to address a rally at a pub in the Halifax suburb of Bedford later today. Liberal Leader Zach Churchill and NDP Leader Claudia Chender had also planned events Sunday in the provincial capital to launch their campaigns.

The early election call comes well before the fixed provincial election date of July 15, 2025, but it is not a surprise.

Houston signaled in June that he was no longer committed to that date, despite it being included in the first bill his government passed after winning the 2021 election. He told reporters at the time that an appeal could take place depending on the circumstances, even if he had not specified what he was referring to.

“When something is so important that I think it’s important for people to speak out, I wouldn’t say wait because it doesn’t suit the fixed election date,” the prime minister said . “Events happen and you have to be aware of them. »

At the time of the dissolution, the Progressive Conservatives held 34 seats of the 55 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The Liberals held 14 seats, the NDP six and one independent.

The Conservatives are seeking a second consecutive mandate from Nova Scotia voters after sweeping the Liberals from power in August 2021 – a victory that is the result of an almost single-minded focus on the need to fix the system health system in difficulty in the province.

This time around, the Liberals and opposition NDP will highlight what they say is the government’s failure to deliver on Conservative promises on health care and its neglect of other pressing issues such as the lack of affordable housing in the province and rising costs. to live.

On the health issue, the two main opposition parties should focus on the high number of people who still do not have access to primary care, including a family doctor. The provincial Need A Family Practice registry, considered an important indicator of health system performance, was updated earlier this month for the first time since June, when it reached a record 160,234 people without a doctor.

New figures indicate a marked improvement, with 145,114 people on the register.

The numbers are still much higher than in summer 2022, when there were just over 100,000 people on the list. However, people on the waiting list for a family doctor have full access to virtual care through the Maple platform, after the government made a concerted effort to expand this option.

Conservatives defended their health record by highlighting community clinics and collaborative practices that gave residents better access to care. Additionally, they said that since 2021, they have strengthened emergency medical care by adding more health personnel and resources to the system.

As of September, Nova Scotia had added approximately 300 doctors to the provincial health system since September 2021, according to the provincial health department.

Conservatives will likely try to persuade voters that they are on the right track to improve health care and simply need more time to complete what is a massive job.

Houston is also expected to run against the federal Liberals. Increasingly, in recent months, the Prime Minister has taken every opportunity to complain about the burden he says Ottawa’s carbon pricing model places on Nova Scotians at the gas pump .

Ottawa’s refusal to pay the full cost of costly work needed to protect the Chignecto Isthmus, the low-lying land link between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which is increasingly subject to severe flooding, is also high on the Prime Minister’s list of grievances. One of Houston’s other criticisms of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau concerns the Liberals’ unrealized plan to resettle thousands of asylum seekers across the country, including in Nova Scotia, a move Houston called “simply unacceptable”.

During a short ten-day session of the Legislative Assembly in September, the Prime Minister launched several attacks against the opposition Liberals in an attempt to tie them to federal policies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 27, 2024.

The Canadian Press