South Shore—St. Margarets

South Shore—St. Margarets runs along the Atlantic coast of southwestern Nova Scotia, encompassing the counties of Lunenburg and Shelburne, the region of Queens, and a small portion of Halifax Regional Municipality near St. Margarets Bay. Major communities include Lunenburg, Bridgewater, Shelburne, Lockeport, Liverpool, Mahone Bay, and Chester. The riding had a population of approximately 79,100 in the 2021 census.

Candidates

Rick Perkins (Conservative) defeated the Liberal incumbent to win the seat. Born in 1961, Perkins’ family has lived in the South Shore region for more than 270 years and were founding families of several communities. He holds an MBA from the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University. After working on political staff for Conservative cabinet minister Barbara McDougall during the Mulroney government, Perkins moved into the private sector, working for CIBC and Newcourt Credit Group before co-founding the investor relations firm Genoa Management. His most notable business achievement was engineering the hostile takeover of Liquor Stores North America, the largest publicly traded beverage alcohol retailer in North America. He had previously run in the riding in 2019.

Bernadette Jordan (Liberal) was the one-term incumbent and sitting Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard. A graduate of St. Francis Xavier University with a degree in Political Science, Jordan worked for eight years as a development officer for the Health Services Foundation in Bridgewater, raising millions of dollars for regional healthcare before winning the seat in 2015. She served as Canada’s first Minister of Rural Economic Development in 2019 before moving to the Fisheries portfolio—the first woman elected in Nova Scotia to hold a federal cabinet post.

Olivia Dorey (NDP) was 27 years old and was raised at the head of St. Margarets Bay. After leaving Nova Scotia, she worked on Parliament Hill as a page and then in several government departments, including the office of House Speaker Geoff Regan. She had served on the Canadian International Council and helped establish iVote-jeVote, a civic engagement organization. She returned to Nova Scotia in 2019 and ran as the NDP candidate.

Thomas Trappenberg (Green Party) was a professor of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, holding a PhD in physics from RWTH Aachen University. His research focused on computational neuroscience, machine learning, and robotics, and he was the co-founder of Nexus Robotics and ReelData.

About the Riding

South Shore—St. Margarets is a predominantly rural coastal riding and the second most southerly in Canada after parts of southern Ontario. Tourism is the riding’s most important industry, with the UNESCO World Heritage town of Lunenburg, Peggy’s Cove, Oak Island, and the Kejimkujik National Park Seaside area drawing millions of visitors annually. Lobster fishing on the South Shore is a cornerstone of the local economy; Canada’s largest secondary fish-processing plant is located in Lunenburg. Clearwater Seafoods and other major fishery operations are headquartered in the region.

The 2020 moderate livelihood lobster fishery dispute cast a long shadow over the 2021 campaign. The conflict between Mi’kmaw fishers exercising treaty rights and non-Indigenous commercial fishers, which at times turned violent, drew national attention to the region. As fisheries minister, Jordan’s handling of the dispute was widely criticized by both sides, and the issue played a significant role in her defeat.

Bridgewater (population approximately 8,500) is the largest town and serves as the service centre for the South Shore. The region’s economy also includes forestry, though the industry has been in decline with mill closures. Healthcare access, housing affordability, and rural broadband were prominent concerns in 2021. Shelburne, at the western end of the riding, is one of the oldest towns in Canada and faces challenges common to small coastal communities, including depopulation and limited services. The riding includes four First Nations reserves.