Nova Scotia byelections send voters back to the polls

​Nova Scotians are going back to the polls on Tuesday, July 14 in three provincial ridings.

Cape Breton Centre and Sydney-Whitney Pier are up for grabs as a result of retirements, and Dartmouth-South is vacant because of the sudden death of Liberal Allan Rowe. He died in March of a brain aneurysm. ​

The NDP has had a lock on the two Cape Breton seats for more than a decade.

Former deputy premier Frank Corbett represented Cape Breton Centre for 17 years. Gordie Gosse was the MLA for Sydney-Whitney Pier for 12 years.

Each racked up impressive majorities.

In fact, Corbett took 80 per cent of the vote in 2009. The Dartmouth South seat has a more checkered political past.

Before Rowe won it for the Liberals in 2013, it was held by the NDP's Marilyn More through three elections. She won it in 2003 from Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Tim Olive.

He took the seat from new democrat Don Chard who won it after former Liberal premier John Savage stepped down.

'NDP have the most to lose'

The byelections come roughly midway through Stephen McNeil's first mandate.

"The NDP have the most to lose," said Don Mills, CEO of public research firm Corporate Research Associates.

"Two of those ridings are pretty long-standing NDP ridings. If they were not able to hold those two seats [or] lost all three, I think it would mean that they have a big rebuilding job to do. It may be bigger than they expect."

The party with the most to gain is the PC party, according to Mills — and the party wouldn't have to win a seat to do it.

"If they were to not necessarily win, but be competitive in those byelections that would send the signal that people are starting to to give them serious consideration as an alternative," said Mills. 

The party's best showing in the last election in the three ridings up for grab was 18 per cent of the vote in Dartmouth South.

As for the Liberal party, Mills doesn't think these byelections are make or break, nor are they a mid-term assessment of their government.

"Even if they were to lose the Dartmouth South seat, it's not going to make an impact on their ability to run the province. They could easily position it saying it's not a traditional Liberal seat."

Dartmouth South has been represented by all three parties since 1999, but the NDP has held it the longest during that time — 10 years.

In the CRA poll released on Wednesday, 50 per cent of those surveyed said they were completely or mostly satisfied in the Liberal government.