If the Nova Scotia election results are any indication, the federal Liberals are in trouble. Despite setting a fixed election date for July 2025, PC Premier Tim Houston called a snap election for Tuesday, November 26th, and for anyone who isn’t Tim Houston and his PC party, the results are dire. They seem to reflect the sense that many working-class Canadians have that conservatives are more attuned to – or at least better at communicating about – the day-to-day struggle of making ends meet.
This election saw the lowest voter turnout in Nova Scotia history, with only 45 per cent of registered voters turning up to cast a ballot. About 58,000 fewer people voted in this election than in 2021, despite the overall population growing during that time.

The PCs swept the legislature increasing their seat count from 31 to 47. The Liberals experienced a stunning collapse, falling from 17 seats to only two, propelling the NDP under Claudia Chender into official opposition with nine seats. It’s a major victory for Chender, who will become Nova Scotia’s first female opposition leader. Not to mention a victory for the NDP, which has been relegated to third-party status since Premier Darrell Dexter’s government lost to the PCs in 2013 but the PCs supermajority means the years ahead will severely limit the opposition’s power.
It’s worth mentioning that had proportional representation been in place, the seat distribution would have been quite different, with the Liberals being the official opposition (PCs 52.8%, NDP 22.3% and Liberals 22.9%). Independent Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, who was kicked out of the PC caucus in 2021 due to her role in a convoy protest, maintained her seat in Cumberland North, making her the first independent to win in back-to-back elections in the province. Read more about the results from CBC here or see their interactive map here.
Major election issues centred around cost of living and health care – check out this CBC report card on the party platforms as they relate to the main election issues. Council chapters in NS continued to promote their key issues with local candidates, including the Coastal Protection Act, by creating and sharing a list of questions for candidates that community members were welcome to use whenever the opportunity arose.
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The results show conservatives are doing a better job of presenting themselves as the party that can address the cost of living crisis. A recent panel from the Council of Canadians called The Many Can Defeat the Money (read more and watch the recording here) discusses how it’s people power, not political parties, that are best suited to rise up to the challenges of corporate capture, profiteering, and predatory fossil fuel capitalism that are the real drivers of the economic suffering so many Canadians are experiencing right now.
The PCs’ resounding victory is not a sign that conservatives are best able to address rising costs of housing, groceries, and medication, it’s an indicator that the political left has not put forward a compelling progressive case for a more just and fair economy. This is evidenced by the fact that 58,000 fewer people voted in this election than in 2021, and while the Progressive Conservatives did gain about 24,000 new votes, the Liberals and NDP lost about 73,000 and 9,000 votes respectively. Going forward, it’s critical that left organizations like the Council of Canadians, and left political actors put forward persuasive, economically grounded policy proposals.
As we head into a federal election, our messaging must be aspirational and achievable. The many can defeat the money, but to do that, we have to beat the conservatives at the messaging game and inspire people to vote.
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