Some support can no longer be taken for granted
FREDERICTON—If there’s any place that embodies the fluid nature of politics in the Atlantic region these days, it’s the Lincoln Big Stop along the Trans-Canada Highway outside Fredericton.
The enormous truck stop includes a convenience store, a liquor store and a popular restaurant that promises stickto-your-ribs cooking at reasonable prices.
It’s where then-Green MP Jenica Atwin met with longtime Liberal Dominic LeBlanc last spring to hash out the nuts and bolts of crossing the floor to the governing party. And it’s where 71-year-old voter Larry Kinney squeezed into the parking lot on Labour Day to pick up some snacks.
He’s also thinking of changing allegiances.
Kinney voted Green in the last election, the first time he’s ever done that. This time, like so many other potential voters, he is not sure who he’ll vote for or where his party loyalties lie. He is kicking tires, but he will probably vote Liberal — even though Atwin switched teams.
“I can’t find a reason not to,” he says, leaning against his red pickup. “Just give her a chance.”
That grudging vote in their favour seems to be the bestcase scenario for Liberals in tight races in the Atlantic provinces in this campaign. The bravado of a few weeks ago, when the big red blob on the right hand side of the riding map of Canada seemed destined to stay red, has wavered.
Of 32 seats in the four Atlantic provinces, 27 were held by Liberals at dissolution, and the Liberal path to a majority assumed all of those seats would remain in their hands.
No one is making those assumptions now.
Atwin certainly isn’t. Her campaigners do three twohour stints of door-knocking every day, and make thousands of phone calls in between, trying to persuade constituents one by one that the Liberal MP should be re-elected.
Atwin takes it as a good sign that she is coming across a lot of undecided voters.
“They’re willing to change their mind,” she says. “It gives me a second chance.”
Down the highway in Nova Scotia, they know all about switching teams. Just a few weeks ago, voters there toppled the long-reigning Liberal provincial government in an upset, handing a majority to the Progressive Conservatives for the first time since 2009.
Over in Truro, in the rural riding of Cumberland-Colchester, rookie Conservative candidate Stephen Ellis is out canvassing and finds an openminded reception from a couple putting away a stroller in their backyard.
Jeff Douglas, 40, has voted Liberal in the past, and while he thinks Justin Trudeau helped the country during COVID-19, he has no faith in the Liberal leader’s ability to keep his promises or lead Canada back to health.
“They spent, spent, spent with no plan for recovery,” Douglas says.
His current MP, Liberal Lenore Zann, was previously an NDP MLA, and he also has no patience with that.
“There’s nothing in my conscience that would allow me to vote Liberal.”
Political veteran Bill Casey has seen more than his fair share of shifting allegiances, including his own. The Nova Scotian from Cumberl and Colchester has been elected as a Progressive Conservative, a Conservative, an Independent and a Liberal.
Last month, he ran as a Liberal in the provincial election and lost, like so many of his colleagues. He still doesn’t understand what happened or why the electorate turned so suddenly against the incumbent Liberal government.
He blames the brutal and divisive nature of social media for dramatically polarizing political discourse, squeezing out the more balanced approach of traditional media that has dried up in his region.
But there’s more to this political restlessness than loudmouths on Twitter. Conservative candidates are picking up on a widespread fatigue with Trudeau, which often manifests at first with complaints about a string of minor foibles before culminating in a louder complaint about him calling an unnecessary election just to consolidate his own power.
“We’re not through COVID yet, and we had the Afghan (crisis),” says Jamie Hiemstra, who grows herbs commercially on his property in the Kings Hants riding.
“I don’t think we need an election right now. It’s like he is more for himself than the people.”
Hiemstra voted Liberal in 2015 and 2019 but found himself opening up his property over the weekend to Conservative candidate Mark Parent and the likes of former Conservative cabinet minister Peter MacKay for a local event.
The snap election call pushed him away from Trudeau, but it was the Conservatives’ commitment to boost funding and ask the provinces to prioritize mental health that enticed Hiemstra to actively support the Tories.
Hiemstra saw his business collapse during the dark days of the pandemic, and his own mental health followed suit. He doesn’t blame politicians for his pandemic pain, but he is certainly looking for leadership in the aftermath.
Indeed, for all their trying on different parties for size and picking away at opponents’ weaknesses, what ties so many Atlantic voters together is a deep and almost weary desire to move past the pandemic soon, and with political support — despite the success of the Atlantic bubble that kept COVID-19 and the residual economic damage at low levels.
Back at the Big Stop, when asked what he would look for if he knew the next prime minister were standing next to him in the parking lot, Kinney says, “For God’s sake, some kind of magic wand to get us out of this mess — but no one can do that.”
As Atwin says about her constituents, “There’s a lot of gloom and doom. They are really worried about the future.”