Newfoundland and Labrador primed for election

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Voters in Newfoundland and Labrador will go to the polls on Nov. 30 in a provincial election that was scheduled to formally start on Thursday.

Premier Paul Davis of Newfoundland and Labrador scheduled the launch of the Progressive Conservative party’s campaign for Thursday evening at a youth community centre in Paradise.

Newfoundland and Labrador has a fixed-date election and Davis had until Sunday under the province’s election law to formally start the campaign.

Liberal Leader Dwight Ball, who experts tab as the election frontrunner, launched his campaign Monday.

Earle McCurdy is fighting his first campaign as leader of the NDP and held an event Thursday where he made a case for voters to elect the province’s first NDP government.

Since Confederation we’ve had 66 years of jockeying back and forth between Liberal and Conservative governments,” he said. “Liberal government for 10 years or so, Conservative government for 10 years or so, Liberal government for 10 years or so? How’s that been working for you?

“You know, I think it’s time to kick that habit.”

McCurdy said his campaign will lay out the issues it believes are important to the provinces residents including affordable day care, dignity for seniors living in their homes and the impact the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project will have on electricity bills.

The NDP will also focus on explaining the party’s values to voters, he said, adding that a long list of election promises isn’t what they expect.

“It’s pretty easy in an election campaign for anyone to come up with a list of promises a mile long, we’ve seen it in the past, and then if a new government is elected to say, ‘We just realized what a mess the old crowd left behind and we can’t do all that stuff we promised,’ ” he said.

The Progressive Conservatives have held power since 2003.

The Tories have 28 seats in the legislature, the Liberals 16, the New Democrats three. One seat is vacant.

The electoral boundaries were redrawn earlier this year to reduce the number of seats in the legislature to 40 in a cost-cutting measure.