Newly elected South Shore-St. Margarets MP Jessica Fancy-Landry speaks to a voter in Liverpool earlier in the campaign. (Rick Conrad)

UPDATED TUESDAY at 5:20 P.M.

Voters in South Shore-St. Margarets went back to the Liberals on Monday night, electing first-time candidate Jessica Fancy-Landry in a decisive victory.

Fancy-Landry beat Conservative incumbent Rick Perkins by about 7,000 votes, grabbing 55 per cent support.

The Liberal got 27,871 votes to Perkins’s 20,854, according to preliminary results from Elections Canada.

“I think it was our positivity,” she told QCCR in an interview.

“We ran a very positive and clean and energetic campaign and I think that really resonated with a lot of people here.”

Turnout in the riding was just over 72 per cent, which was higher than the national rate of about 67 per cent.

Fancy-Landry is originally from Caledonia and now lives in Bridgewater. She’s a teacher at Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin.

Perkins was first elected in 2021, ousting then-fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan.

Fancy-Landry said the big issue on the campaign trail was affordability and people’s concerns over the cost of living.

“Also, Trump and tariffs and then being a coastal riding, definitely fisheries,” she said. 

“But I really think right now it’s time to unify all of our community and really build on this positivity and build trust back where the Liberal Party might have lost trust in a couple of different areas within the riding.”

She said she believes growing up in the area helped cement her win.

“I think that was my secret sauce. We need someone who has been here, has their feet on the street, has raised their kids here and really knows those intimate concerns and issues for the area and has the connections to bring people together.

“I really think it was that positivity in bringing people together that really spoke to a lot of people because politics right now is just so divisive. And we need to unify as a nation. And I really felt like … now that we have that mandate, we can start doing a lot of really good work.”

She said she’s already heard from municipal leaders from around the riding, as well as other Liberal MPs to help her in her new role.

Fancy-Landry said that in the next few weeks, she’ll be getting orientation as a first-time MP and meeting with the rest of the newly elected Liberal caucus.

She’ll also be wrapping up her career as a teacher.

But she’s looking forward to getting to work as the MP for South Shore-St. Margarets.

“That’s been my tagline for the last 37 days: ‘Let’s get to work,’” she said. 

“And now we’re here and we’ve got to put our money where our mouth is and work really hard for our constituents, all constituents.”

The Green Party’s Mark Embrett finished third with 818 votes. Patrick Boyd of the People’s Party of Canada was the choice of 698 people and independent candidate Hayden Henderson got 460 votes.

Elections Canada said 50,701 of 70,205 eligible electors voted. That included just over 19,000 people who turned out for advance polls over the Easter weekend.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Listen to the audio version below

Jessica Fancy-Landry is the Liberal candidate in the riding of South Shore-St. Margarets. (Jessica Fancy-Landry)

Jessica Fancy-Landry is trying to take back the riding of South Shore-St. Margarets for the Liberals in the April 28 federal election.

She’s up against incumbent MP Rick Perkins, who won the seat in the 2021 election over Liberal MP Bernadette Jordan by about 1,800 votes.

Fancy-Landry, a Bridgewater resident and first-time candidate, is a teacher at Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin.

She’s also a community volunteer, including serving as past board chair with the Rural Communities Foundation of Nova Scotia.

Fancy-Landry grew up in Caledonia, Queens County. We asked her about various local issues in the campaign, including the commercial fishery and the prospect of a new kraft pulp mill in Liverpool.

The interview was recorded on April 9 and edited for length.

Listen to our interview with Jessica Fancy-Landry below:

The South Queens Chamber of Commerce is organizing a meet-and-greet in Liverpool with candidates in South Shore-St. Margarets. (Elections Canada)

Voters in Queens County will get a chance to meet some of the candidates vying to be the next MP for South Shore-St. Margarets.

The South Queens Chamber of Commerce and Main and Mersey Dining Room and Coffee Bar in Liverpool are teaming up for a candidate Q&A on Mon., April 21 from 4 to 6 p.m.

Ashley Christian is president of the chamber of commerce.

“The idea is a casual meet-and-greet forum,” Christian said. “What we’re going to be doing is casual networking and then allowing each of the candidates five to 10 minutes to introduce themselves to the group and then we intend to take questions from the floor. So we expect one hour of a more formal question-and-answer period and then another hour of just casual networking.”

Christian said she expects three of the five candidates to be at the event: Liberal Jessica Fancy-Landry, the Green Party’s Mark Embrett and Patrick Boyd of the People’s Party of Canada.

Conservative Rick Perkins, who is running for re-election, could not make it.

Christian did not know whether Independent candidate Hayden Henderson will be at the event. Henderson is the outreach director for the youth wing of the NDP. He was a last-minute addition to the ballot after the NDP’s Brendan Mosher dropped out and has since been endorsed by the NDP. 

“We really wanted to give the citizens of Queens County an opportunity to meet everyone, hear their platforms, hear what’s important to them and ask them questions,” Christian said.

The event is free, though people have to register at this link. The federal election is April 28.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Listen to the audio version of this story below