Green Party leader Elizabeth May took aim at Canada’s defence minister Peter MacKay in Central Nova.
Green party leader Elizabeth May remained optimistic in her concession speech after being defeated by Defence Minister Peter MacKay in the Central Nova riding in Nova Scotia.
“If kids five years and under could have voted, I would have won by a landslide,” she joked in a light-hearted speech to supporters.
May spent her final campaign day serving a free Thanksgiving dinner to homeless and low-income people at a New Glasgow church.
She told supporters that many of those people were unable to vote because they don’t have the identification now required under the Canada Elections Act. Had they been able to go to the polls, she said, the outcome of the election might have been different.
MacKay credited his win, in part, to the unpopularity of the carbon tax in the Atlantic provinces.
“Putting up the cost of everything was not something that people on their doorsteps wanted to hear…. This policy was not popular at all,” he told Canadian Press.
Overall, the Liberals took the most seats in Atlantic Canada, but did not gain much new ground and in Nova Scotia they lost one seat.
Voters in Newfoundland and Labrador ousted the Conservative party from the region. The Liberals gained two seats, bringing their total to six seats in the province.
The NDP took one seat from the previously Conservative riding of Avalon. According to Canadian Press, this was mainly due to Premier Danny Williams’ ABC campaign – Anything But Conservative.
In New Brunswick, Conservatives gained three seats from the Liberals. NDP candidate Yvon Godin kept his seat in Acadie-Bathurst.
Conservatives gained important ground in Prince Edward Island, where they snatched one seat away from Liberal stronghold Egmont. The other three seats in PEI remained with the Liberal party.