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Polls to open in 22 districts on Saturday
A topical sea shanty
It s been an interesting and quite busy few days of election watch in Newfoundland and Labrador.
It s been so busy, in fact, that we had to park our daily run of the Election Notebook to focus on the pandemic response, as COVID-19 cases in the St. John s-metro area drastically spiked this week, throwing all plans out the window.
But with the spike in cases came some complications for the election, a two-pronged attack on the news cycle.
Staffing problems, related to the influx of new cases, began to surface from Elections NL returning offices in the metro area, while PC Leader Ches Crosbie and NDP Leader Alison Coffin were once again critical of Liberal Leader Andrew Furey s snap election call. Furey called the delay a welcomed pause.
The chief electoral officer of Newfoundland and Labrador has postponed voting on Saturday for 18 districts in the province because COVID-19 cases have caused "considerable operational impacts."
Vote Compass: Dependence on oil needs to be reduced, most voters say
A shade of green emerged in some of the results of Vote Compass, which collected answers from more than 4,000 respondents about issues in the Feb. 13 provincial election. That said, many voters still see a future for an industry that has been key for delivering billions in government revenues.
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A shade of green? Yes … but many voters still see the oil industry as part of the future economy
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Charities ask for new deal with government
NDP want more leave days for victims of partner violence
Where the leaders head Saturday
Ches Crosbie s Progressive Conservative party is pledging a path to balance but no actual balanced budget for at least four years.
The party s blue book platform, revealed Friday in St. John s, says a PC government wouldn t present a balanced provincial budget until a hypothetical second term. The overwhelming focus has to be on jobs and growth, Crosbie told reporters in St. John s. The other half of that, doing something about our expenditure problem. And I ve told you that I agree something needs to be done. I made a few remarks as to how we re going to do that. But the focus has to be on generating the wealth, generating the jobs that will keep people here, that will unlock the potential of this province.