It’s a threeway tie, again. Incumbent Rodney Weston is back in second place as Wayne Long surpasses AJ Griffin for first. However, with a three point margin of error, the parties are in a statistical tie at 32.2%(Lib), 31.4%(Con), and 30.8%(NDP). Weston is the only contender of the big three to not occupy the top spot since polling began months ago. During the height of (Justin)Trudeaumania Long had a comfortable lead. Then Justin’s popularity began to dip and Mulcair stole the spotlight, giving an (at the time) unnamed New Democrat a lead of 13 points over second place Weston. Then Weston fell to third.
Saint John-Rothesay, at this point, looks like it could be the most interesting of the New Brunswick ridings to watch on election night. Many of the other ridings in the province, save a couple, have pretty clear winners ahead. The only questions will be how many votes did they win by, and who came in second?
Getting to know the candidates in Saint John-Rothesay is important. Who are they? Where do they come from?
Rodney Weston, the Tory, is a New Brunswick Community College graduate who operated a gas station before getting into provincial politics in 1999. He served under Bernard Lord until 2003 when he lost re-election. He went on to win a seat in the House of Commons in 2008 where he has raised a few eyebrows with seemingly counter-intuitive votes on important bills. As a former volunteer firefighter, he actually voted against protections for volunteer firefighters (Bill C-504). Despite the tough-on-crime slogans of the Conservative Party, Weston voted against a bill that would have stymied the trade of blood diamonds from conflict zones (Bill C-486). Even after his own party was fingered in the robocall scandal, he voted against a bill that would have prevented further robocall scandals (Bill C-524), a missed opportunity for him as he could have distanced himself from the alleged corruption within his own party.
AJ Griffin, the New Democrat, works in the information technology field and gives her time to charitable causes including the Canadian Cancer Society, Kids Help Phone, and Habitat for Humanity. This isn’t her first time running for elected office. AJ ran for the provincial NDP in 2014 in the riding of Quispamsis where she came in third. Prior to her IT work and previous foray into politics, AJ grew up in the Millidgeville area of Saint John and owned a garden center on Somerset Street.
Wayne Long, the Liberal, was also born and raised in Saint John. You might already know him as president of the Saint John Seadogs. He has a long and interesting career story as contract negotiator, product manager, board member, and company president. In August of last year, Long tweeted that our city has fallen backwards over the past 20 years, and that we once had the same population as Halifax. What will Wayne do differently that our previous MPs either couldn’t or wouldn’t do over the past twenty years? He hasn’t really answered that yet, but we’re listening.
Sharon Murphy, the Green, has run for office several times before. 2010’s New Brunswick provncial election saw Sharon Murphy run for the Greens in the riding of Rothesay but lost by 3,000 votes. In 2011, Murphy ran against Rodney Weston and won 1,017 votes- to Weston’s 18,456. In 2014, Murphy ran for the riding of Saint John East and won 353 votes to Gary Keating’s 2,332. When Keating resigned just days later, Murphy ran again in the resulting by election. She lost the by election to Glen Savoie by 1,963 ballots. But her worst showing was in the 2012 by election for the riding of Rothesay; where she won only 69 votes of support.
Sharon Epic is running for the comical Marijuana Party. Why does this party even exist anymore when every other left wing party already wants to legalize or decriminalize marijuana? She is a “live painter” who sometimes enjoys wearing a fake beard, discussing the effects of time travel, fourth dimensional sculpture, the subliminal language of the universe, and being real. Though she may not have the makings of a great parliamentarian, she actually is a gifted artist. I would recommend that you check out her work.
With the three major parties being so close to one another, the Green Party faithful could actually serve as kingmakers. It’s unlikely that Epic’s Marijuana Party will generate more than one hundred votes, but the Greens control just enough vote share that were they to lend their support to any of the big three, it might actually sway the riding in the direction they decide. Both the Liberals and New Democrats have promised some form of electoral reform. Should they stay true to that promise, it would benefit the Greens greatly in future elections. So Saint John Greens have a choice; cast a ballot this year for Sharon Murphy just to make a statement or swallow a difficult pill this year so that Green ballots will actually be counted in future elections. As printed in previous posts, Saint John-Rothesay would not be the first riding to see Greens take this approach.
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