HALIFAX—The Tories are projected to take another seat in the Nova Scotia legislature as municipal councillor Steve Craig narrowly won over a longtime NDP stronghold in a byelection Tuesday.

Unofficial results show Craig as the winner in Sackville-Cobequid with 42 per cent of the vote, just three per cent ahead of the New Democrat candidate Lara Fawthrop. If Elections Nova Scotia confirms the results on Thursday, it will mean the end of an NDP reign in the riding that endured for more than three decades.

“You never know until the last poll is in,” Craig said in his victory speech at the Kinsmen Club in Sackville Tuesday night.

Craig said that as he campaigned, he heard from residents about problems in health care, education and the economy — “all very, very important issues that I commit to you I will be working on with my colleagues over the next coming two years leading up to the 2021 general election.”

He thanked Tory leader Tim Houston, who welcomed Craig along with many of the 17 other PC MLAs.

While the PC win won’t change the Liberal majority at Province House, Houston said the byelection results spoke volumes. According to the unofficial results, Liberal candidate Michel Hindlet took just over 10 per cent of the vote. In the 2017 general election the Liberal candidate in Sackville-Cobequid garnered more than 25 per cent of the vote.

“What happened tonight is Nova Scotians turned their backs on Stephen McNeil and the Liberal party,” Houston said at Craig’s election party.

“The Liberal Party of Nova Scotia was humiliated in this byelection and they deserve it,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Green Party made gains relative to the 2017 general election when their candidate took about three per cent of the vote. After Tuesday's byelection, they were not far behind the Liberals, with their candidate Anthony Edmonds taking almost 8 per cent of the vote.

Last week, Dalhousie University political science professor Lori Turnbull told the Star it would be bad news for the NDP if they lost this seat.

When they were in government from 2009 to 2013, the NDP held as many as 32 seats. More recently, they are down to five. Last week, longtime NDP MLA Lenore Zann quit the party to sit as an independent while she seeks a federal Liberal nomination.

“It’s starting to look like they’re really losing momentum,” Turnbull had said of the NDP in Nova Scotia.

But NDP leader Gary Burrill didn’t let the loss dampen his spirits during a speech to supporters Tuesday night.

“This result does not change one particle the fact that we are right, that the time is long past for governments to overlook necessary investments, particularly in health care and in education so that they can protect at all costs the bottom line of their provincial budget,” Burrell told the crowd. “That’s something that hasn’t changed one iota by this result.”

Unofficial results pegged Craig as the winner by a margin of 183 votes. Fawthrop, who was also celebrating a birthday on election day, was moved to tears when supporters brought out a cake and sang when the concession speeches were over.

“The NDP is going to continue their fight for better health care. No regrets. We worked very hard and we appreciate all our voters who did come out to send a message to the McNeil government about health care,” Fawthrop said in an interview.

“I would say absolutely it was a message to them on health care.”

When asked if she’d consider another run for the Sackville-Cobequid seat in the future, Fawthrop simply smiled and said “We’ll see.”

The NDP have held the Halifax-area riding since its formation in 1993. MLA David Wilson, a paramedic before entering politics, held the seat for the NDP from 2003 to 2018 and retired from politics last November.

Before Wilson’s lengthy foray into provincial politics, the seat was held by John Holm. Holm first won the former Sackville riding — which had similar boundaries to the current district — in 1984.

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The last time the Progressive Conservatives beat out the Liberals for second place was 2006, when Steve Craig made his last bid.

Craig was elected as Halifax regional councillor for District 15 — Lower Sackville in 2012 and was acclaimed for the same job in 2016.

In December, when he announced that he would seek the Progressive Conservative nomination for the byelection, he told Star Halifax that he would keep his council seat while making the provincial bid.

“I don’t believe anybody should walk away from the job they’ve been hired to do till the end, so I’ll continue to do that,” he said at the time.

The day after the byelection was called, the Nova Scotia NDP filed a complaint with Elections Nova Scotia, claiming that Craig was breaking the rules by using his council resources to win votes.

The NDP complaint contained two allegations: that Craig used a municipal newsletter to advertise his campaign, and that in issuing a $20,000 cheque to a community group after the writ dropped, he was buying votes.

ENS dismissed the former allegation and investigated the latter, but in the end said Craig didn’t break any rules.

Still, ENS recommended that the province change the Elections Act so that in the future, elected officials would have to take a leave of absence during the election period.

With 6,316 voters in the byelection, voter turnout was almost 42 per cent.

Unofficial results are:

Steve Craig for the Progressive Conservatives: 2,655 votes

Lara Fawthrop for the New Democratic Party: 2,472 votes

Michel Hindlet for the Liberal Party: 658

Anthony Edmonds for the Green Party: 488 votes

David F. Boyd for the Atlantica Party: 43 votes

Yvette d’Entremont is a Halifax-based reporter focusing on health. Follow her on Twitter: @ydentremont

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