By Andrew Macdonald
There’s been a bevy of NS PC contenders being nominated over the past few months – but an election in NS does not have to be called until 2022.
I reported last week that businesswoman, Nicole Mosher was selected as the Tory standard-bearer in Fairview-Clayton Park.
She comes to the party via an acclamation, in the riding her family has lived in for the last three generations.
She is seeking office in the community where PC leader Tim Houston grew up – Houston lived in rental units with his military dad and mother in Fairview.
Mosher has extensive community volunteer roles on her resume.
NS PC leader Tim Houston with PC candidate for Fairview-Clayton Park, Nicole Mosher. (The Notebook photo).
I’d say she is a credible contender in the riding where there are a lot of immigrants, and while politics and religion never get discussed together in The Notebook, she worships at Ummah and Al-Barakah mosques – giving her a sizeable vote base, after she converted to being a Muslin, when she married her former husband, who arrived in the riding as a younger from the Gulf War.
Meanwhile, Nargis deMolitor is now the PC candidate in Clayton Park West.
She describes herself as a community leader and a health professional.
Born and raised in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Nargis is a registered nurse.
Susan Corkum-Greek, meanwhile will run for the Tories in Lunenburg. She’s a former community weekly editor.
Corkum-Greek is currently the general manager of the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance.
Before that, she managed the tall ship Picton Castle and The Dory Shop Boatyard, was also executive director of the Lunenburg Board of Trade and spent 17 years covering community news for Lighthouse Publishing.
Chris Palmer is going to be the PC candidate in Kings West in the next provincial election.
He’s a well-known financial advisor, musician and community leader, who was acclaimed in October.
Palmer is a graduate of Dalhousie University who has worked in the financial services industry for 22 years. He is also a popular singer who leads the gospel band Sonlight. He was named songwriter of the year in 2015 by the Maritime Gospel Association.
Kent Smith, an entrepreneur will run for the Houston Tories on the Eastern Shore.
Born in Sheet Harbour, Smith earned his Bachelor of Commerce degree at McGill University and returned to manage the family business, .
In 2015 he sold the business and the following year co-founded the Senior Solutions Development Group Limited, a company focussed on improving the quality & quantity of housing options along the Eastern Shore.
He lives in Musquodoboit Harbour.
Contender Sura Hadad will run for the PCs in Bedford South in the next election.
Hadad has lived in Nova Scotia for 29 years and she obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from Dalhousie, and received a Masters of Education from Acadia University.
She is a dentist.
“Hadad is the third Muslim woman to join Houston’s PC team as an HRM candidate”, says the party, following both Nargis deMolitor and Nicole Mosher.
In a chat with Houston, he says he was nominated a year before winning his Pictou East seat for the first time in 2013.
“Tucked away in Pictou County, working Zoom and the phones” during the second wave of COVID, Houston, spoke to The Notebook after Mosher was acclaimed in Fairview-Clayton Park.
That election could be personal for Houston, who was raised in Fairview.
“I have a strong affection for Fairview”, he tells me.
“For me as leader, when you are recruiting candidates, and talking to candidates on what is possible for their communities and the province, when people make the decision to actually put their name on the ballot, and do it besides you, it is a humbling experience”, says Houston.
“So on all the candidates we will have I am all in, I want the best for them because they are stepping up for the right reasons”.
While the next election might not take place at least until 2022, Houston says his strategy now is to get his candidates out and about in their respective communities.
“Definitely, politics is about people, so the more time nominated candidates have to build their own brand, and to work their own social networks the better – myself I was nominated for a year before the election in 2013, and I felt that benefited me from where I was coming from”, he adds.
“I see benefits in having nominated candidates out there, and within their community for sure”.
On Nicole Mosher’s candidacy, Houston says: “She is an impressive person. I have been impressed with her and have known her for a few years. She is part of the team we are assembling which is an impressive team and we will continue to build that out across the province”.
