RICHMOND COUNTY - Returned to its original riding boundaries after eight years of incorporating the nearby Town of Port Hawkesbury and communities in the southeastern Cape Breton Regional Municipality, the constituency of Richmond is featuring a four-candidate race that offers hints of the county's political past, present and future.

Originally elected as a PC candidate in 2017, independent candidate Alana Paon was turfed from the party caucus in 2019. She feels her independent status allows her to serve her constituents without being beholden to party politics, and she is hoping that a new term as MLA will help her in her quest to address inequities at the constituency level and in the provincial House of Assembly.

Replacing Paon on the Richmond Tory ticket is chiropractor and former Port Hawkesbury Deputy Mayor Trevor Boudreau. The co-chair of the Cape Breton South: Recruiting For Health committee that has concentrated on local physician recruitment for the past two years feels that this ground-level experience will help him carry out PC Leader Tim Houston's stated focus on improving health care across the province. 

The Liberals are running Arichat's Matt Haley, who is the official Coordinator of Operations for the province-wide Francophone school board known as the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP) and sits on the boards of directors for the Arichat Community Development Association and the Petit de Grat Beautification Society. He feels this blend of community dedication and experience with dealing with different levels of government within his CSAP job will serve Richmond well if he is elected as MLA.

New Democrat Bryson Syliboy is taking his first crack at elected politics. Originally from Shubenacadie FIrst Nation, he was lived in Port Hawkesbury for the past nine years and publicly pondered a run for the town's municipal council last fall before ultimately declining to run. Syliboy is a Two-Spirit Mi'kmaq who feels his campaign is crucial to ensure that more indigenous and LGBTQIA voices are seen at Province House and in similar leadership positions.