‘Going to be a dog fight’: Libs in Newfoundland prepare for toughest electoral fight in a decade without high-profile minister Seamus O’Regan

Archived version: [https://archive.fo/7UF4X](https://archive.fo/7UF4X)

Summary:

## ‘There’s no real heir apparent,’ said former O’Regan campaign manager Charlie Byrne. ‘Seamus was a giant for the province at the cabinet table on the federal scene.’

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>After three consecutive landslide wins by outgoing former federal cabinet minister Seamus O’Regan, Liberals living on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula are gearing up for some much tougher battles in that region in the next campaign, but they also believe they can hold the former minster’s seat.
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>“There hasn’t been a competitive election in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl for 10 years,” said Charlie Byrne, O’Regan’s 2019 campaign manager, in an interview with The Hill Times. “This will be a competitive election.”
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>O’Regan defeated an NDP incumbent to capture the riding of St John’s South—Mount Pearl for the Liberals in 2015, and held the seat in 2019 and 2021—in each of those three campaigns winning with more the 50 per cent of the vote. He has been the Liberals’ most high-profile MP in the province ever since the retirement of former Liberal minister Judy Foote in 2017.
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>On July 18, O’Regan announced he planned to finish his term as an MP, but would leave cabinet immediately and not seek re-election.
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>The news came as “a little surprise,” said Byrne, but only in the sense that it wasn’t expected at that moment. Byrne said he is not surprised however to see O’Regan moving on after three terms as he approaches 10 years as an MP.
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>[…]
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>Byrne, who is also the president of the Cape Spear Federal Liberal Association—named for the new riding that will consume most of O’Regan’s old constituency the next time Canadians go to the polls—said that, given current polling trends, “you’d have to be foolhardy to look at it and say that we’re not in a tougher position,” but he still believes the district can return a Liberal.
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>The Liberals are struggling in opinion polls, including in Atlantic Canada, despite the region having been a key part of the equation each of the three times Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) formed government. An Abacus Data poll released on July 25 found the Conservatives have 47 per cent support in Atlantic Canada, while the Liberals are at 35 per cent and the NDP has 14 per cent.
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>Byrne said the Liberals will be looking for another high-profile candidate to take O’Regan’s place.
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>“There’s no real heir apparent,” he said. “Seamus was a giant for the province at the cabinet table on the federal scene.”
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>[…]
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>He said the party would benefit from having someone like a municipal councillor, mayor, or a provincial politician—or someone with a strong media presence or business background—to step up as the candidate.
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>“We know that it’s probably going to be a dog fight this time,” said Byrne.

# Carbon tax a ‘very big deal’

>One issue that has troubled the party in the region has been the Liberal government’s carbon tax. Liberal MP Ken McDonald, who represents the neighboring riding of Avalon, has been an outspoken critic of his own government over that policy. McDonald has also indicated he will not be seeking re-election.
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>The issue came to a head in the fall of 2023, when opposition to the tax reached a breaking point, and the Liberal government offered a Canada-wide carve-out to the policy for home-heating oil, a highly expensive form of energy that is disproportionality used in Atlantic Canada. The change was met with praise from the Liberals’ Atlantic caucus which had reportedly lobbied for the move.
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>Byrne said the carbon tax has been a “very big deal” in the province, and that it’s possible that other candidates who seek the nomination in either of these ridings may also come forward looking to take a different position on the carbon tax than the one held by the central party, given that even Newfoundland and Labrador’s Liberal Premier Andrew Furey has expressed dissent with the federal party over this matter.
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>[…]
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>[Byrne] said there is presently “a big misunderstanding” of “why it exists, what it does, how you get the money back.” He said the carve-out of the home heating oil was a positive step, and the party has “the next year or so to get us in a good position for the fall” to address the challenges of communicating about that policy.

# O’Regan’s departure may have ‘sent a signal’: Shortall

>Mary Shortall, who ran as the NDP’s candidate in the neighbouring riding of St. John’s East in the 2021 federal election, and who has secured the nomination to be her party’s candidate in that riding again in the next federal campaign, told The Hill Times that while she understands family issues were a factor in O’Regan’s decision not to run again, the move may have also “sent a signal to people that the writing is kind of on the wall about the Liberal Party” in ridings across the province.
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>Shortall, who was also elected president of the federal NDP at the party’s convention last fall, said with O’Regan running “people understood it was probably a hard seat to get, unless you were Seamus,” but his departure has “actually has opened up the possibilities to other people running” to challenge the Liberals for that seat.
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>Shortall, who has been actively canvassing in St. John’s East for over a year now, says when she goes to the door she gets the sense that some voters may now be making a choice between the Conservatives and the NDP.
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>On July 30, NDP MPs Heather MacPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, Alta.) and Lindsay Mathyssen (London-Fanshawe, Ont.) were in St. John’s on a trip related to their critic responsibilities, and joined Shortall in canvassing the riding.
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>On July 30, NDP MP Lindsay Mathyssen, Newfoundland and Labrador NDP Leader Jim Dinn, NDP candidate for St. John’s East Mary Shortall, and NDP MP Heather MacPherson canvass the riding of St. John’s East. Photography by Brad Greeley courtesy of Mary Shortall
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>When she knocks on doors, Shortall said the primary issue she hears about is the cost of living.
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>“More and more people are really struggling to get by,” she said. “Wages are not keeping up with the cost of living, and grocery prices in Newfoundland and Labrador are higher than anywhere across the country.”
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>She said the contrast between her and the Conservatives is that “the solution that Pierre Poilievre has come out with is more about reacting to that anger. But we’re not hearing real solutions to how to address those issues.”
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>She pointed to the NDP’s role in pushing the Liberal government to adopt policies like dentalcare and pharmacare as an example of the work her party was doing to address the affordability crisis.
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>Shortall will be trying to unseat one-term incumbent Liberal MP Joanne Thomson, who confirmed to CBC News on June 11 that she will run again. Meanwhile, the Conservatives recently nominated David Brazil, a former member of the House of Assembly and interim leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador Progressive Conservative Party.
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>The Hill Times reached out to several regional organizers, ridding association presidents, and former candidates for the Conservatives in the region, but all either declined or did not reply.

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