The New Democratic Party says they still have legislative power, despite the major win from the PC Party in the election.
NDP leader Claudia Chender told reporters on Wednesday that they’ve gotten a lot accomplished before with even less people. They passed several pieces of legislation in the previous government, when they only had six seats.
“We bring the voices of Nova Scotians into the people’s house, and we confront the government with what it is that people actually need when they’re not willing to pay attention to that,” she said.
“Tim Houston’s PCs are going to face a different kind of opposition, one that is effective and one that holds them to account.”
The official opposition status will let the NDP keep the pressure on Houston and the Conservatives, but they’re going to keep working on their main campaign issues: closing the fixed term lease loophole, more rent control, lowering the amount of people on the family practice wait list, improving health care, passing the Coastal Protection Act, making an impact on intimate partner violence, and making life more affordable.
Party hopes to grow
The party celebrated some modest gains on election night, flipping some seats from the Liberals and Conservatives in the Halifax area.
They held onto their seat in Cape Breton Centre-Whitney Pier but couldn’t break into rural parts of the province. Chender said the party is hoping to grow but attributed some of the low votes to the timing of the election. Premier Tim Houston called it months ahead of the initial planned date in July.
“[When] you call an election after a municipal election, when it gets dark at five o’clock in November, when people are planning for Christmas, and in the middle of a U.S. election, when there’s a postal strike, yeah, you might not get that many people to the polls,” she said.
She also becomes the first woman elected as leader of the opposition. Karla MacFarlane was appointed as the interim opposition leader for the PCs in 2018, but she did not run as the leader.
Overall, Chender said she’s excited the party will be the next official opposition.
“I think I stood at a podium a couple of years ago when I became leader and said we were ready to win. And so, I think it was clear to us at that moment that that was our project. Our project is to form government, and certainly Official Opposition is the first step.”
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