INVERNESS COUNTY - Already challenged by one of the most sparsely-populated ridings in Nova Scotia, the three candidates in the Inverness constituency must now win over thousands of voters in the Town of Port Hawkesbury, which was added to the riding this year after spending the previous eight years in the riding of Cape Breton-Richmond.

The Inverness incumbent, Allan MacMaster, actually scored his first victory for the riding in 2009 which it still encompassed Port Hawkesbury. MacMaster, a lawyer by trade and the son of legendary Judique fiddler player Buddy MacMaster, squeezed out a 50-vote margin of victory in a by-election triggered by the resignation of former Premier Rodney MacDonald shortly after his election defeat to Darrell Dexter's New Democrats. Should MacMaster retain the Inverness seat for the Progressive Conservatives and his leader Tim Houston become the new Premier, MacMaster is likely to earn a cabinet post as a senior member of the Nova Scotia PC caucus.

Challenging MacMaster this time around are Liberal nominee Damian MacInnis and NDP candidate Joanna Clark, both natives of Port Hood. 

MacInnis is a former executive director of the Strait Area Chamber of Commerce and recently served as Economic Development Officer for Inverness County within the Cape Breton Regional Enterprise Network (CBREN). He is also a co-founder of Celtic Air Services, the company which signed a management contract for the Allan J. MacEachen Municipal Airport, as well as the Inverness County-based business Celtic Keys. If MacInnis wins the seat, he will be the first Liberal MLA elected by Inverness voters since 1998. 

Clark, a recent graduate of Universitie Sainte-Anne who is now working as a substitute teacher, is fluently bilingual and has been using that skill to woo voters in the Cheticamp area. The NDP has never won the Inverness riding, with its only second-place finish coming in 1998 via candidate Maria Coady.