Published Apr 30, 2025 • 3 minute readFederal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, right, talks as Halifax candidate Lisa Roberts listens in Halifax on Aug. 19, 2024. Both Roberts and Singh lost in their districts in the 2025 federal election. Photo by Ryan Taplin /THE CHRONICLE HERALDPolitics is a heartless, zero-sum business.Win and you are on top of the world; lose and your ignominious defeat is there for the entire world to see. I have never run for anything. But I have been around elections enough to wonder if it’s like athletes say: winning isn’t as good as losing is bad. Back in 1997, I called a Liberal MP from New Brunswick who had lost his seat as voters elected a Jean Chretien-led Grit majority. I don’t recall his exact words, but I remember the hurt in his voice as he talked about how he felt — that his supporters, who he thought of as friends and neighbours, had turned against him. 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I was thinking about that Tuesday morning, looking at the election results in Nova Scotia, where, beneath the final vote tallies, lie so many human stories. NDP Lisa Roberts speaks at the Halifax candidates debate on April 24 at Dalhousie University. Photo by Francis Campbell /The Chronicle HeraldLisa Roberts, the former MLA for Halifax Needham, lost to Liberal incumbent Andy Fillmore in the Halifax riding by 1,558 votes in 2021. This time around, with Fillmore off to be mayor of Halifax, she was the odds-on favourite. While Justin Trudeau was still prime minister, the Liberals were having trouble even rounding up a candidate. Then Trump started mouthing off, and Mark Carney stepped into the fray. Though the riding hadn’t been represented by a Conservative since 1984, fear of a Poilievre government led traditional NDP supporters to vote strategically for Liberal candidate Shannon Miedema, who won easily. Article contentRoberts, the favourite just months earlier, finished third, behind Conservative Mark Boudreau. The big political forces were also at work in the redrawn riding of Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish. The Liberal candidate there, Jaime Battiste, had been the incumbent in the predecessor riding of Sydney-Victoria. The Conservatives, though, had high hopes for Allan MacMaster, who had announced last October that he was resigning as Nova Scotia’s deputy premier and finance minister to seek the federal Conservative nomination in the riding. Allan MacMaster, who ran as a Conservative candidate in the riding of Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish, conceded his defeat during a concession speech at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre on Monday night. Photo by AARON BESWICK /THE CHRONICLE HERALDMacMaster had been unbeatable in the provincial riding of Inverness, which he had held since 2009. His desire to seek out new challenges is understandable. Last fall, federal Conservatives seemed to be cruising on the road to power, and MacMaster, you’d think, would have been a prime candidate to join a Poilievre government. Article contentBut a week, as they say, is a long time in politics; six months, when they have been as tumultuous as these have been, even longer. Which makes me wonder what was going through MacMaster’s mind Monday night while making his speech conceding the seat to Battiste. “This campaign was different,” he said. “The lines were drawn.” The Conservative incumbents who fell Monday had to feel the same way. Rick Perkins lost to Grit Jessica Fancy-Landry in South Shore-St. Margarets after taking the traditionally Conservative riding from Liberal fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan in 2021. Stephen Ellis, another one-term member of Parliament, went down to defeat to Liberal neophyte Alana Hirtle in the Conservative stronghold of Cumberland-Colchester.Article content Rick Perkins, MP for South Shore-St. Margarets, speaks at a press conference in West Dover on April 16. Photo by Ryan Taplin /THE CHRONICLE HERALDLiberal Lena Metlege Diab, with more than 60 per cent of the vote, left Conservative Rob Batherson in the dust in the riding of Halifax West. But Batherson, a strong communicator who has run before provincially and has been president of the Conservative Party of Canada, might have fared better had the national campaign not kept all its candidates from answering questions from the media during the runoff. You see, when the tidal wave comes, it is hard to go against it. In 1997 — with the Progressive Conservative party sharply divided nationally — it lost every seat in Nova Scotia. Led by Halifax MP Alexa McDonough, the NDP took six seats in the province, more even than the governing Liberals, and the most in its history here. Read More Liberals win 10 of 11 N.S. seats, form federal government Map the votes: N.S. results from the 2025 federal election Red surge: Liberals sweep Halifax-area ridings But in 2015, while driving Stephen Harper’s Conservatives from office, Trudeau’s team steamrolled across the province, taking every seat in Atlantic Canada. This election, a different kind of Liberal groundswell happened, leaving the Conservatives with a single seat and the NDP gains of the McDonough years a mere memory. It’s an old story, with the hope of triumph and the whiff of tragedy. Article content
JOHN DeMONT: The triumph and tragedy of election day
