PCs, Liberals duking it out in fickle Victoria-The Lakes

The Progressive Conservative candidate in the Nova Scotia riding of Victoria-The Lakes is hoping Tuesday's election won't result in a flipped seat, but the Liberal candidate is doing her best to make that happen.

The incumbent, PC candidate Keith Bain, has represented the riding for three terms, but not in a row.

In 2013, Pam Eyking wrested the riding away from Bain by a mere 203 votes, but in 2017, Bain flipped it back with a comfortable margin of more than 2,400 votes.

Bain said he is running again because public service is in his blood.

"Even when I wasn't the MLA, I was still involved in my community and I was still getting calls from people," he said. "You know, 'Can you help me with this, can you help me with that?' So I think that goes a long way ... because people, I hope, know that I'm there for them."

Victoria-The Lakes has been held by the PCs six times and the Liberals six times in the last 12 elections, with the longest streak being five terms (Liberals Kennie MacAskill and Gerald Sampson from 1988 to 2006).

Now, Liberal candidate Nadine Bernard said she is feeling the pressure to take back the seat, but not just for partisan reasons.

She is Mi'kmaw, from We'koqma'q, and spent several years living in Eskasoni, which is in Victoria-The Lakes along with Wagmatcook First Nation.

Bernard also runs two consulting firms that aim to reduce poverty and increase employment among Indigenous people, and works for the province's new Office of Equity and Anti-Racism Initiatives.

A mother and grandmother, Bernard said she and Bryson Syliboy, the NDP candidate in Richmond, are the only two candidates across the province who are Mi'kmaw, and that needs to change.

"That just tells me right there that we're not where we need to be ... in being able to be a more inclusive government structure, to make it feel like diversity is more welcomed," she said.

Bernard is conscious of the importance of being a role model for change.

"Little kids are now seeing my face on these billboards and posters and saying, 'That's me. That's me someday and that's me in the future,' and I would love to see my granddaughter saying, 'That's going to be me,' and that's what I want to hear echoed in all of my Mi'kmaw communities across the province. That is going to be me."

Adrianna MacKinnon ran several times for the Green Party, but said switching to the NDP was easy.

She said the parties have similar platforms, but the New Democrats have a stronger team.

MacKinnon said she continues to run for provincial office because she is opposed to the corporatization of government policies.

"The current government, and to some extent past governments, have morphed into a neoliberal monster that is all about privatization and centralization of power and decision-making and removing all of those things that make communities work," she said.

MacKinnon famously quit her teaching job in a video on social media after the Liberals commissioned the Glaze report and eliminated English-language school boards and removed principals and administrators from the teachers' union.

She has also publicly protested Liberal announcements about health-care redevelopment in Cape Breton, and said she doesn't go along to get along.

"Yeah, if you want to be a part of this, you just have to go along with all the power structures that exist and yeah, I'm kind of not really like that," MacKinnon said.

"I'm going to speak up and speak out and so if you want a voice, I'm your girl, because I'm definitely not going to be that yes-man."

Perennial Independent candidate Stemer MacLeod is running in his ninth provincial election since 1993.

He usually garners a couple of hundred votes. He said he's fine with that.

He is not running a traditional campaign, or any campaign, really. No signs, no donations, no expenses and no knocking on doors.

MacLeod said people need to have an alternative to the political system.

"I don't believe the parties should be allowed in the country," he said. "I think they're the ruination of politics. They're the ruination of the people's vote.

"It doesn't matter who they put forward, the finest person in the riding and then 10 times that, they'll get told what to do and ... they'll get shuffled right off to the side if they don't do it."

MacLeod said voters tell him that roads and health care are election issues and he believes corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes.

But he does not have a plan at the ready, if he gets elected.

Roads, health care are issues

"That'd be my worst nightmare, I think, if I did get elected, but if I can open people's eyes ... to what's really going on, what the politicians are ignoring and between the taxation and the corporate ripoff, maybe they could make a wiser decision."

The riding covers a large swath of rural Cape Breton, from the Washabuck peninsula in the centre of Bras d'Or Lake to Meat Cove on the island's northern tip.

All the candidates said roads and health care are important issues.

As a teacher, MacKinnon said roads are not just a transportation link. They also have an effect on poverty.

High-speed internet also a need

"Back in 1991, there were kids who didn't come to school and I knew why they weren't there," she said.

"It was because the transportation did not go to their location, because it was too dangerous and the road was not fit. It hasn't changed much."

Bain said in addition, high-speed internet needs to be expanded and the government needs to reverse administrative changes to health and education.

"Everything is centralized in Halifax now," he said.

"Even our school system. No more school boards, no more local voice anymore and in order to get to the nitty-gritty of the issue, you have to have that local voice."