KENTVILLE, N.S. — The Green and New Democratic parties may not have come out on top in Kings-Hants in the federal election but there’s no question both made significant gains with voters.
In the last federal election in 2015, the NDP candidate in Kings-Hants (Hugh Curry) received 2,998 of the 46,686 valid votes. In 2019, NDP candidate Stephen Schneider was the choice of 8,243 out of 48,035 voters.
In 2015, the Green Party candidate (Will Cooper) received 1,516 votes in Kings-Hants, compared to 6,029 for candidate Brogan Anderson in 2019.
Schneider said he was very pleased with the increased vote tally, “but the bigger issue to me is the vote splitting between the Greens and the NDP.”
NDP-GREEN COALITION?
Collectively, the two parties had over 14,000 votes, in excess of the 11,905 votes Conservative candidate Martha MacQuarrie received. Schneider said he believes that – combined – the Greens and NDP would have given the Liberals a run for their money. Liberal candidate Kody Blois won the riding with 20,807 votes.
Schneider said he heard on the doorsteps that a lot of people were voting strategically to keep the Conservatives out. He hopes senior representatives of the Green and NDP parties will do something about this “splitting of the progressive vote”, which isn’t exclusive to Kings-Hants.
“I’m exceptionally skeptical of running again for the NDP unless this is addressed, unless there’s something done where the NDP and the Greens are not competing in the same riding,” Schneider said.
He hopes the two parties can put their differences, which are minimal compared to their shared values and aspiration, aside and form a partnership. Schneider said it would be formidable if such a coalition came to fruition, either formally or informally.
LACK OF REFORM
Schneider said he’s frustrated with how the Liberals are “able to manipulate” the electoral system. They won 157 seats with “the lowest popular vote in history.” Schneider said this basically tells us that the system is broken, and we have to move toward proportional representation.
He said the “tragic irony” of this is that the Liberals campaigned on electoral reform in 2015, something Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had “absolutely no intention of implementing.” Schneider said that because there was no electoral reform and first-past-the-post was maintained, the Liberals won the election.
Schneider said he has nothing against Blois, who he believes will make a very good MP for Kings-Hants. He feels that he “bonded a bit” with Blois while attending events on the campaign trail. However, Schneider said he has less respect for the Liberal party and for Trudeau.
With the minority government, Schneider hopes the Greens and NDP will withhold support from the Liberals unless electoral reform is made the first order of business.
PLEASED WITH CAMPAIGN
This was Green Party candidate Brogan Anderson’s first political campaign. She found that there were surprises all along the way but is very pleased with the campaign they ran. She said she had “unprecedented levels” of contributions in terms of the outreach of volunteers and donors.
“The 10 per cent threshold is meaningful in terms of election funding and I think we did very well,” Anderson said.
She believes “a lot of people are more concerned about climate than was accounted for by the media buzz” and the reason the party didn’t make greater gains is the political system as it currently stands.
She visited many doorsteps and knew there was “an openness to the Greens.” Looking at results nationally, had there been electoral reform, there would have been higher numbers for the party. A lot of voters were concerned about a Conservative majority and voted strategically based on that. She is pleased, however, that three Green MP’s were elected.
She said there is nothing like campaigning in terms of having exposure to different people, how they live their lives and how they think or don’t think about politics. Getting to interact with people on that level and asking what matters to them and what they’re thinking about is “a privileged experience.”
ABOUT THE COALITION
Anderson said it wouldn’t be for her to say at this level what the Green Party and NDP might decide to do in terms of working together.
“In my experience, NDP and Greens do politics significantly differently, and the Greens represent a slightly different constituency than the NDP, so it would be interesting to see what kind of conversations might be had about making an alliance,” Anderson said.
She said that if the NDP is serious about this, it would be wonderful to see them take a bold stance on climate in this next parliament and demonstrate that the two parties share the same priorities.
FIVE FAST FACTS
- Formerly known as Annapolis Valley, the federal riding of Kings-Hants was created in 1966 and was first contested in 1968.
- According to the 2016 census, the riding has a population of 83,465.
- In 2015, the number of electors was 66,454.
- The riding is approximately 4,124 square kilometres.
- The riding has gone Conservative (or Progressive Conservative) on 10 occasions and Liberal on seven occasions.
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