Nova Scotia election riding results: Cumberland North

Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin has been re-elected for the riding of Cumberland North as an independent.

Smith-McCrossin was a member of the Progressive Conservative party until she was ousted from the caucus in June for her role in a blockade at the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border over COVID-19 travel restrictions

Riding background

The main population and service centre for the riding is the town of Amherst. The riding stretches east to Malagash and includes Pugwash.

Tourism, agriculture and maple syrup production make up the primary industries.

Candidates

Liberal: Bill Casey

• First elected as a PC MP for the area in 1988
• He was expelled from the federal Conservative Party after voting against the 2007 budget and won re-election as an independent MP in 2008, resigning the next year
• Won the federal election for the Liberals in 2015 and decided not to run federally in 2019

Progressive Conservative: David Wightman

NDP: Lauren Skabar

• Recent graduate of Dalhousie University with a master’s of information and certificate in libraries
• Grew up in Amherst and has worked with Cumberland Public Libraries to implement community programming in the area

Independent: Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin (incumbent)

• Was a member of the Progressive Conservative party until she was ousted from their caucus in June, for her role in the blockade at the New Brunwick-Nova Scotia border over COVID-19 travel restrictions
• First elected as an MLA in 2017

History

The riding has been held by all three major parties in recent years, and Independent MLAs too.

PC MLA Ernie Fage was first elected in the riding in 1997 but was suspended from the party’s caucus in 2007 after charges were laid against him for leaving the scene of a collision. He sat as an independent MLA until 2009 when he was defeated by the NDP’s Brian Skabar.

Liberal Terry Farrell won the seat in the 2013 election, and then the riding returned to the PC in 2017 with the election of Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, who is now an Independent candidate.