2021-09-21

South Shore-St. Margaret’s turns blue

Following hard on the heels of Lunenburg and Queens counties voting in Progressive Conservative candidates in the August 17 provincial election, the riding of South Shore-St. Margaret's has voted in Conservative candidate Rick Perkins in the September 20 federal election.

Perkins, who lives in Ingramport, was declared the winner of the seat after 269 of the riding's 270 polls recorded their counts.

The businessman had nearly 2000 votes over his nearest rival, the incumbent MP Liberal candidate Bernadette Jordan, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard in the Trudeau government.

Perkins had 19,771 votes or 41.0 per cent of the votes, while Jordan chalked up 17,793 votes (36.9 per cent.) The NDP candidate, Olivia Dorey, secured 9,274 (19.2 per cent), while the Green Party's Thomas Trappenberg trailed at 1,395 (2.9 per cent).

"It's overwhelming and humbling and daunting all at the same time," Perkins told LighthouseNOW after the media declared him a winner.

The tables have turned from the 2019 election that saw Jordan walk away with 21,887 votes and Perkins 14,744.

On September 20, Perkins said "it became pretty clear" after the provincial election in August that people in the riding were "looking for change," and "it seemed to solidify as they became aware that Mr. Trudeau was going to call the election ... the voters were angry about that."

In a previous interview, Perkins told LighthouseNOW the primary issue he was hearing on the doorsteps was "having a Member of Parliament that represents the views of our community, doesn't represent the views of Ottawa to our community.

"They're fed up with a Member of Parliament that's not speaking on their issues, whether it's the fishery or small business taxes ... and health care of course," he had said.

On election night, Perkins emphasized,"There was quite a desire for change locally." He added that the Conservative Party leader, Erin O'Toole, also had a platform "that really resonated well" with the riding.

Perkins said one of his first priorities is to make sure that the casework in Jordan's office concerning people in the riding who are having trouble with the federal government gets transferred over so they can continue to be served by their MP.

His other priority is to determine whether there's a budget to open other offices elsewhere in the riding.

Though the Bridgewater office will remain the riding's main office, "it's not reasonable to ask people to drive more than 120 kilometres to get to Bridgewater," he said.

Meanwhile, Perkins is looking forward to hearing from the community "and doing all I can to make sure I'm the voice of people who work on the water, work in the woods, work on the farms and work in the manufacturing facilities that build great things here."

LighthouseNOW reached out to Jordan, who lives in West Dublin, for a comment. However she declined to be interviewed at the time.

South Shore-St. Margaret's covers the counties of Region of Queens Municipality, Lunenburg and Shelburne counties and the western part of the Halifax Regional Municipality.

The riding was held by Conservative Gerald Keddy from 1997 to 2015. Keddy stepped down in 2015 and the seat was taken by Jordan.

The Conservative Party made gains elsewhere in Nova Scotia, picking up two more seats than last election and putting up strong showings in other ridings.

Conservative Chris d'Entremont, the only other Conservative member to have a seat in Nova Scotia before election day, has retained the seat in West Nova that he first won in 2019.

In Cumberland-Colchester, Conservative candidate Stephen Ellis was declared the winner over Liberal incumbent Lenore Zann.

On the national front, while vote counting continued well into the night, the Liberals were deemed to remain in power, albeit with a minority government.