In the east coast province of New Brunswick, there are three key ridings to watch for, says a political scientist.
New Brunswickers are no strangers to going to the polls as of late, having voted twice in the past year at both the provincial and municipal levels, but the province is expected to play a key role in the federal landscape, too.
Sunday could mark the start of a federal election campaign, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expected to meet Gov. Gen. Mary Simon Sunday and ask her to dissolve parliament.
Global News has confirmed reporting originally published by Reuters that Trudeau plans to ask for an election on Aug. 15. A tight five-week campaign is expected to follow, with Election Day on Sept. 20.
Ridings to watch
Fredericton
Jenica Atwin’s move from the Green Party to the Liberals has been under the national microscope as the federal Greens continue to deal with inner turmoil and lately, staffing cuts.
The three-way race between Atwin, Conservative runner-up Andrea Johnson and Liberal incumbent Matt DeCourcey was only split by 2,577 votes.
Johnson is vying for the seat again while Nicole O’Byrne is throwing her hat in the ring for the Green Party, and Atwin will try to keep it a Liberal riding.
Miramichi-Grand Lake
Lewis highlights the showdown in Miramichi-Grand Lake “especially for folks who follow provincial politics” with former New Brunswick cabinet ministers Liberal Lisa Harris and the Conservatives’ Jake Stewart having secured their nominations.
“The politics there can be difficult to predict,” Lewis says.
Harris, a three-term Liberal MLA, was first elected in 2014 and served as the minister of seniors and long-term care in the Brian Gallant government.
Jake Stewart has served as the Southwest Miramichi-Bay du Vin MLA and is the former Aboriginal Affairs minister in the Blaine Higgs government.
Saint John-Rothesay
The Saint John-Rothesay region has “been a bit of a bellwether riding,” Lewis says, noting that it has “swung back and forth over the last few years.”
“The margin that Wayne Long won by in 2019 was smaller than it was in 2015,” he says.
The federal Tories are putting a well-known face on the ballot as former Saint John Mayor Mel Norton seeks a seat in Ottawa.
The announcements and visits
On Friday, Beauséjour MP and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe MP Ginette Petitpas Taylor visited city hall in Dieppe to make a Francophone immigration investment announcement.
Earlier in the week, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh made a stop in Bathurst to visit with former NDP MP Yvon Godin, becoming the third major federal party leader to attend the province.
These are just some of the federal visits to the province in recent weeks, all before the federal writ is even dropped.
Erin O’Toole made a three-day visit to the province and made stops in the three important ridings.
He marked the trek with a campaign-style announcement supporting the proposed Fredericton Aquatics Centre if elected.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland have also made stops in New Brunswick in the past couple of weeks, and the party has been getting Atwin out in the public spotlight on several occasions.
The current landscape
In New Brunswick, there are seven Liberal seats while the CPC has three voices in the nation’s capital.
Asked how important the province will be in the pending election, Lewis says there’s “an opportunity for New Brunswickers to talk their way into the national conversation.”
“At least now, it appears it could be a close race between a minority and a majority government,” Lewis says.
He says polling patterns have remained relatively stable over the past few months with the Liberals having a “decent lead.”
Issues in New Brunswick will be similar to those across the country, Lewis suggests, pointing to health care, childcare, affordability, housing, climate change and Indigenous relations.
At the provincial level, the past year has seen the provincial governments in New Brunswick and B.C. go to the polls with a minority government, and return with a majority.
Lewis says the clock on minority governments can often run out after two years, and the federal Liberals are hoping for similar outcomes.
But given the pandemic, there’s another talking point.
“The conversation around the timing of this one may last a bit longer before we kind of snap into what we’d expect the normal debate around policy ideas and positions,” he says.
Lewis points to pandemic elections being unpredictable, pointing to the provincial vote in Newfoundland and Labrador, where results were delayed to an outbreak of COVID-19 cases back in March.
And while a lot of time has passed and things have changed since then, it could still be a gamble to send Canadians to the polls.
“We don’t know what this current wave of the pandemic means for what’s going to happen in the next few weeks,” Lewis says.
Canadians are expected to go to the polls Sept. 20.
— with files from Amanda Connolly and Silas Brown
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