New MLA carries on after wife’s death

‘You got to keep busy. You got to work’

A newly elected Nova Scotia politician is tapping into personal grief and frustration when he takes on his new role.

Tim Halman won the Dartmouth East riding for the Progressive Conservatives in Tuesday’s election which returned Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil to power with a second straight majority.

But for Halman, the bittersweet victory came just weeks after his wife – the mother of his two young children – died from breast cancer.

Halman told Global News his wife had been in remission following a diagnosis three years ago but that the disease returned in October as he was being nominated as a Tory candidate.

He says he decided to carry on with the campaign to show his kids the importance of working for something they feel strongly about, adding that he was inspired to “be a strong voice on education matters in the House of Assembly.”

The Dartmouth high school teacher says he became interested in politics when the McNeil government scrapped the film tax credit and then imposed a contract on the province’s teachers.

Halman said health care will be his number 1 priority once he’s sworn-in as an MLA, but labour relations will also be high on the priority list.

“In order to deal with some of the trauma you might be going through, you got to keep busy. You got to work,” he said.

“It dawned on me that I could either go back to the classroom, or try to fix the classroom and certainly that’s what I’m attempting to do and I intend to be a strong voice on education matters in the House of Assembly.”

“It dawned on me that I could either go back to the classroom, or try to fix the classroom and certainly that’s what I’m attempting to do and I intend to be a strong voice on education matters in the House of Assembly.” Tim Halman, Dartmouth East MLA