Kings—Hants

Kings—Hants spans the farmland and orchards of the Annapolis Valley alongside the towns of Hants County in central Nova Scotia. The riding stretches from the Bay of Fundy tidelands in the north to the Highway 101 commuter corridor in the east, where communities like Elmsdale, Enfield, and Lantz have grown steadily as suburban extensions of Halifax.

Candidates

Kody Blois (Liberal) — A 28-year-old lawyer from Hants County, Blois held degrees in commerce and law from Saint Mary’s University and Dalhousie University, and practised at the firm McInnes Cooper. He sought the Liberal nomination following the departure of longtime MP and cabinet minister Scott Brison, who had resigned his seat in February 2019 after holding the riding for more than two decades.

Martha MacQuarrie (Conservative) — A Kentville resident and longtime Conservative volunteer, MacQuarrie had been a constituency assistant to a provincial legislator. She focused her campaign on reducing regulatory burdens for small businesses and opposing the federal carbon tax.

Stephen Schneider (NDP) — Schneider was a criminology professor at Saint Mary’s University and a recognized expert in crime prevention and organized crime, with five published books on the subjects. He had lived in the Annapolis Valley and was involved in community development.

Brogan Anderson (Green Party) — Anderson, a library clerk with the Annapolis Valley Regional Library, won the first contested Green Party nomination in the riding’s history. Originally from Quebec, she was fluently bilingual and campaigned on climate change, pointing to rising sea levels and intensifying storms affecting local fisheries.

Other candidates included Matthew Southall (People’s Party), Nicholas Tan (Parti Rhinocéros), and Stacey Dodge (Veterans Coalition Party).

About the Riding

The Annapolis Valley is one of Atlantic Canada’s most important agricultural regions, with more than a thousand farms producing apples, berries, and vegetables across the fertile lowlands between North Mountain and South Mountain. The valley’s wine and craft beverage industry was expanding by 2019, with vineyards and cideries drawing agritourism visitors. Kentville is the administrative seat of Kings County and home to the federal Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre. Wolfville, further west, hosts Acadia University, a major employer and cultural institution. Windsor, at the junction of the Avon and St. Croix rivers, anchors the Hants County portion of the riding. With Brison’s retirement creating an open seat, the 2019 contest attracted significant attention as a test of whether Liberals could hold a riding that had swung between parties over the decades. Agricultural trade policy, rural broadband connectivity, and support for the seasonal tourism economy were among the leading local issues.