TELILE 24/7 Pre-Election Special #2

STRAIT AREA - With Nova Scotia's election campaign now in its final two days, TELILE 24/7 has two more candidate interviews and a special report on a pre-election announcement that drew cheers in some corners and raised eyebrows in others.

Premier and Liberal Leader Iain Rankin arrived at the Port Royal bridge with Richmond Liberal candidate Matt Haley exactly one week before the final day of voting for the provincial election. Rankin and Haley announced that the bridge, shut down since 2017, would receive $2 million worth of funding from Nova Scotia's Department of Transportation and Active Transit (TAT) to receive a complete overhaul, including the installation of guardrails and culverts on nearby MacEachern Road. 

While Rankin defended the timing of the announcement, noting that residents of Port Royal, Saint-Mary's and Janvrin's Island have had to take a 1.3-kilometre detour to get to Highway 206 in West Arichat for the past four years, independent candidate Alana Paon later insisted that she had already begun the work to secure the bridge funding and chastised the Liberals for waiting until a week before the election to finalize the upgrades. 

This week's episode also includes interviews with Inverness PC candidate Allan MacMaster, whose 12 years as an MLA make him the longest-serving candidate in the Strait Area, and Richmond NDP candidate Bryson Syliboy, who is hoping to increase representation in the provincial legislature for both the Mi'kmaq indigenous population and the LGBTQIA community. Syliboy is one of two Mi'kmaq candidates running in this provincial election, with Eskasoni's Naomi Bernard currently campaigning as a Liberal candidate in Victoria County opposite longtime PC MLA Keith Bain.