TELILE 24/7 PODCAST #26: Mike Kelloway Re-Elected In Cape Breton-Canso

GLACE BAY - Mike Kelloway has no regrets, and he doesn't feel Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party of Canada will regret calling the 2021 federal election for the date of September 20.

Kelloway, re-elected as a Liberal candidate in the riding of Cape Breton-Canso, stuck to a position shared during a candidates' debate held at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre ten days before the election campaign. Co-sponsored by Telile Community Television, the Strait Area Chamber of Commerce and 101.5 The Hawk FM radio, the debate saw Kelloway insist that Parliament had become "unworkable" during the months leading up to Trudeau's latest election call, making it necessary for the vote to proceed despite the onset of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in many parts of Canada and around the world.

Today, as Kelloway reflects on an election that generated the same result - a Liberal minority government - and party standings strikingly similar to those that preceded this election, he is insistent that Conservative MPs used "obstructionist" tactics to drive the previous parliamentary session into gridlock, making this vote necessary in order for Canada to proceed with its pandemic recovery plans. 

While Kelloway is pleased to have increased his personal vote total and share of the popular vote in Cape Breton-Canso from his first electoral run in 2019, he is disappointed with some of the fallout from the campaign. He told TELILE 24/7 host/producer Adam Cooke that he detected a lot of anger on the doorsteps as he criss-crossed Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia, much of it fueled by social media discourse that has, in Kelloway's view, cheapened political discussion and the overall quality of public debate on the local and national level.

Kelloway, the Atlantic Liberal Caucus Chair in the previous House of Commons, was also saddened by the defeat of previous Liberal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Bernadette Jordan in her riding of South Shore-St. Margaret's on election night. While Kelloway agreed that the dispute over the indigenous moderate-livelihood fishery played a role in Jordan's defeat to Conservative candidate Rick Perkins, he remains hopeful that discussions between indigenous and non-indigenous fishers in his riding will bear fruit in the weeks and months to come.