Liberals hold Nova Scotia riding of Kings-Hants

Global News has declared Liberal candidate Kody Blois the winner in the Nova Scotia riding of Kings-Hants, the electoral district of former long-time Liberal MP and cabinet minister Scott Brison.

Blois secured victory after seizing 42.3 per cent of the vote with over 80 per cent of the polls reporting. The Conservatives’ Martha MacQuarrie finished second with just shy of 25 per cent of the vote. The NDP’s Stephen Schneider came in third with nearly 18 per cent of the vote, while the Green party’s Brogan Anderson received 12.6 per cent.

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This became one of the races to watch in Atlantic Canada, after Brison stepped down as member of Parliament in February after holding the riding for 22 years, both in opposition and in government.

Brison had first been elected in 1997, when he ran and won as a candidate for the Progressive Conservatives. After briefly stepping down for three months to allow Joe Clark to run in a byelection, he was then re-elected as a Liberal after he crossed the floor in 2003.

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He repeated four times in a row, winning by a landslide margin of more than 50 per cent of the vote in 2015.

Blois, who took the baton from Brison for the Liberals, is a lawyer at the firm McInnes Cooper, according to his LinkedIn profile. The first member of his family to graduate from university, he holds a commerce degree from Saint Mary’s University and a law degree from Dalhousie University.

He was born and raised in Kings-Hants, according to his biography on the Liberal party’s website.

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His Conservative challenger, Martha MacQuarrie, has been a volunteer with the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia and Conservative Party of Canada for 20 years, according to her website.

A native of Truro, N.S., MacQuarrie worked in the family business before moving to Kentville in 2001 and starting an alarm security company with her husband, Brian Kingsbury.

Kingsbury passed away in 2015 “after being diagnosed with cancer caused by exposure after 30 years of volunteer firefighting,” according to MacQuarrie’s website.

Kings-Hants lies along the Fundy shore and includes Windsor, East Hants and Kentville (Annapolis Valley).

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