St. John's East

St. John's East takes in the northeastern portion of the provincial capital, stretching from the historic downtown core and harbour through the residential neighbourhoods north toward Torbay, Flatrock, and Pouch Cove. The riding is home to Memorial University of Newfoundland, Signal Hill National Historic Site, the colourful Battery neighbourhood, and the cultural hub of George Street and Duckworth Street.

Candidates

Jack Harris (NDP) — Harris returned to contest St. John's East in 2019 after losing the seat to Liberal Nick Whalen in 2015 by a slim margin. One of the most experienced politicians in the province, Harris held degrees from Memorial University, the University of Alberta, and the London School of Economics. He practised labour law in St. John's for many years, served sixteen years as a provincial MHA, and led the provincial NDP for fourteen years before returning to federal politics in 2008, when he reclaimed the seat he had first won in 1987.

Nick Whalen (Liberal) — Whalen was the incumbent, having unseated Harris in the 2015 Liberal wave. A St. John's native, he studied engineering at Queen's University and law at McGill University. He practised energy, intellectual property, and corporate law at McInnes Cooper, and was the province's only qualified patent agent at the time of his initial election. He had served on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights during his term.

Joedy Wall (Conservative) — Wall was serving as mayor of Pouch Cove when he entered the race as the Conservative candidate in a riding where the party had long struggled to gain traction.

David Peters (Green Party) — Peters ran for the Greens on a platform focused on climate action and meeting Canada's obligations under the Paris Agreement. Notably, he publicly supported the Newfoundland seal hunt even though his party did not, drawing attention to the tension between national Green policy and local economic realities.

About the Riding

St. John's East is the intellectual and cultural centre of Newfoundland and Labrador. Memorial University, with roughly 19,000 students and thousands of faculty and staff, is a major employer and research institution whose engineering and ocean sciences programs feed directly into the offshore oil sector. The downtown core hosts the province's densest concentration of restaurants, arts venues, and professional offices, many tied to the energy industry. Signal Hill overlooks one of the oldest harbours in North America. By 2019, the federal election in Newfoundland and Labrador was shadowed by anxiety over the future of the offshore petroleum sector, with proposed emissions regulations and the federal carbon pricing system raising concerns among workers and industry executives. The contest between Harris and Whalen was the most closely watched race in the province, a rematch four years after Whalen's upset victory, and St. John's East proved to be the only riding in Newfoundland and Labrador to change hands on election night.