Regional Parties from another Region #nlpoli

The 2019 federal election in Newfoundland and Labrador is the tale of one of the most uncompetitive elections in recent memory.

The advance poll numbers make the point.

Newfoundland and Labrador	Number of Electors	Electors	Percent
Avalon	7,024	86494	08
Bonavista–Burin–Trinity	3,185	74116	04
Coast of Bays–Central–Notre Dame	4,317	77680	5.5
Labrador	1,348	27197	05
Long Range Mountains	4,473	86553	05
St. John's East	9,187	85697	11
St. John's South–Mount Pearl	6,700	81979	08

Nationally, turn-out in the advance polls set a record.  That continued a trend over the past two elections that saw an increase in the number voters casting ballots earlier than the official polling day.   Not so in Newfoundland and Labrador. Elections Canada provided more opportunities to vote in advance so that could have produced higher turn-out across the province. But it didn’t.

All but one of the races in Newfoundland and Labrador saw fewer than 10% of eligible voters turn out in the advance polls.  The one race presumed to be highly competitive – St. John’s East – saw a turn-out of 11%, which is the same advance poll turn-out  in that same riding in 2015. In other ridings in the province, the turn-out was the same or lower than 2015.

St. John’s East may return Jack Harris as the member of parliament after rejecting him in 2015.  They may not.  The race is close but whether or not they return Harris to Ottawa, the real story in that riding is that the provincial New Democrats could not find another candidate except this 32-year veteran of provincial and federal politics.  There was no competition for the nomination. 

The state of federal politics in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

There is a problem, apparently.

A very big problem.

In the current federal election, none of the federal party leaders have visited the province yet.

On Friday, three of the four major outlets in the province all carried some version of exactly the same story.  For the quibblers, the Telly story appeared on Saturday but it had to be written at least the day before.  In itself, that fact says much about the state of the news media in the province and it isn;t a good tale.

NTV had local candidates on Issues and Answers but included a reference to the absent party leaders in the set up.  CBC has a commentary by Peter Cowan on its website about the issue. The Telegram story on the Great Void includes comments from Bloc-NDP incumbent Ryan Cleary for good measure. Only VOCM seems to have ignored this political bombshell.