St. John's East, NL — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

St. John's East

The boundaries in force in 2008 gave St. John's East the north end of the capital together with the towns spreading out behind it. Inside the city it held Memorial University and the Health Sciences Centre, Confederation Building, the airport, Churchill Square and the postwar subdivisions along Torbay Road and Portugal Cove Road, leaving the harbour and the old streets above it to the neighbouring district. Beyond the city limits it added Paradise, Portugal Cove—St. Philip's, Torbay, Logy Bay—Middle Cove—Outer Cove, Flatrock, Pouch Cove, Bauline, the eastern half of Conception Bay South, and Bell Island.

Candidates

Jack Harris (NDP) — Harris was trying to win back a seat he had held for sixteen months two decades earlier. Born in St. John's on 27 October 1948 and a lawyer in the city, he took St. John's East at a by-election on 20 July 1987 — only the second New Democrat sent to the Commons from the province — and lost it in the 1988 general election. A provincial by-election on 11 December 1990 took him into the House of Assembly for the district of St. John's East, renamed Signal Hill—Quidi Vidi in 1996, and he was returned there four times. He led the provincial New Democrats from November 1992 until 2006, when Lorraine Michael succeeded him in both the leadership and the seat, and he ran for mayor of St. John's in 1997, losing narrowly to Andy Wells. His former law partner Danny Williams was by 2008 the premier running the campaign against the federal Conservatives.

Walter Noel (Liberal) — Noel holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Memorial University, ran his own business and is a past president of the St. John's Downtown Development Corporation. He entered the House of Assembly for Pleasantville in 1989 and moved to the new district of Virginia Waters in 1996. Brian Tobin made him minister of intergovernmental affairs and of government services and lands; under Roger Grimes he held mines and energy. Kathy Dunderdale defeated him in 2003, and he contested St. John's North federally in 2004.

Craig Westcott (Conservative) — Westcott was a journalist living in Conception Bay South.

Shannon John Tobin ran for the Progressive Canadian Party, Howard Story for the Greens and Les Coultas for the Newfoundland and Labrador First Party.

About the Riding

The seat was open. Norman Doyle, born at Avondale in 1945, sat in the House of Assembly for Harbour Main from 1979 to 1993 before entering the Commons in 1997, as a Progressive Conservative until the 2003 merger and a Conservative afterwards. In 2007, after his caucus backed the budget Premier Williams said broke faith with the province over the Atlantic Accord, Doyle announced he would not run again.

The riding's economy is institutional before it is anything else. Memorial University is the province's only university and by far the largest workplace inside the boundaries, and the ocean sciences and engineering work done there had grown up alongside the offshore industry. The Health Sciences Centre stands across Prince Philip Drive from the campus, and Confederation Building and the provincial public service are minutes away.

The rest is a commuter belt. Paradise had 12,584 residents in 2006 and was adding them faster than any other municipality in the province; Torbay had grown 14.7% in five years to 6,281. Portugal Cove—St. Philip's doubles as the ferry terminal for Bell Island, where iron ore was mined from 1895 until the closure announced in April 1966 and where a population that once passed 12,000 had fallen to a fraction of it. Offshore oil revenue had meanwhile pulled construction, engineering and professional work into the metropolitan area, lifting house prices in the commuter towns faster than incomes.