The message from the Newfoundland and Labrador election is loud and clear: Rural voices will not be silenced. The Canadian government needs to listen.
By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 20, 2025.
OTTAWA—The result of the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial election on Oct. 14 should serve as a wake-up call for the federal Liberals.
Of course, the appetite for change is always present when a government has been in power for a decade. But it would be a mistake to think the majority government delivered to the Progressive Conservatives was simply a result of voter fatigue.
Instead, there was an urban/rural split that went undetected in the multiple polls that predicted another Liberal majority.
The polls were wrong. It was quite obvious that the Liberal messaging resonated in the greater St. John’s area, but fell pretty flat in the rest of the province.
The Liberals held their own in the provincial capital, which is the heart of Newfoundland media coverage. That strength led pollsters to misread the appetite for change that was rolling across the rest of the province.
Liberal Health and Community Services Krista Lynn Howell was defeated by Andrea Barbour, even though Progressive Conservatives were joking that there were more road-paving announcements than icebergs in her Great Northern Peninsula district before the vote.
Howell lost by 595 votes, which does not seem like a lot. But considering the district included only 4,703 voters, that is more than a 10 per cent margin.
Her job as health and community services minister did not help because one of the main issues promoted by the Progressive Conservatives was major new investment in health care.
The Tory party platform called for an improved patient-nurse ratio, and promised the addition of 50 more nursing education spaces at Memorial University. The party also pledged to tackle government spending, all the while reducing taxes.
On the affordability front, the Progressive Conservatives offered the highest personal-tax exemption in Atlantic Canada, raising the threshold to $15,000 below which no taxes would be paid.
It also promised to increase seniors’ benefits by 20 per cent, all the while claiming to reduce government spending.
The Tory platform was only released a few days before the election which meant there was little to attack, but its general focus on health, affordability, and safety appeared to resonate across the province.
Compare that platform to the proposals of the Liberals, who promised hundreds more child care spaces. Child-care spaces are much more popular in urban areas, where an extended family is often not as available to pitch in. The Tories promised to increase the Child Tax Benefit, which goes to every child, not just those whose parents both work outside the home.
Outgoing premier John Hogan tied most of his promised spending increases to the revenue that would be generated from Newfoundland and Labrador’s agreement to sell hydroelectric energy to Quebec.
Hogan claimed that most of his promises would be funded by the cash coming from the 2024 memorandum of understanding penned with Quebec by then-Liberal premier Andrew Furey.
The PCs are advocating changes to the MOU, but premier-elect Tony Wakeham insisted throughout the campaign that the MOU was not the biggest issue. Obviously, voters agreed.
In his victory speech, Wakeham suggested he would launch an independent review of the deal, while Quebec Premier François Legault confirmed his government is open to renegotiation.
At the end of the day, the PC’s platform dealt with pocketbook and health issues for all parts of the province. The Liberals are the urban party, which wasn’t enough to carry them over the finish line.
That same challenge faces the federal Liberals when the lifespan of this minority government is cut short in the next couple of years.
This past spring, Prime Minister Mark Carney was able to present himself as a new face in Parliament, with plenty of experience in the business and international communities.
His triumph was driven, in part, because of the wedge that United States President Donald Trump generated from his incessant calls to annex Canada, and his rude treatment of then-prime minister Justin Trudeau.
But as Carney’s own newness wears off, and the bitter effects of Trump’s anti-Canada campaign wear the country down, the prime minister will have to put something new on the table.
More attention definitely needs to be paid to rural regions that have been painted a deep swath of blue for the past two decades.
They do not represent the majority, but in a tight election, the votes of rural Canadians could well decide who forms government.
The message from the Newfoundland and Labrador election is loud and clear: Rural voices will not be silenced.
The Canadian government needs to listen.
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.
