Dave Wilton has three major problems. As a result, he's highly unlikely to win the by-election for Cape Breton Centre. But it's definitely an interesting race to watch. It's going to offer a strong indication of how the next provincial election will go.

Problem number one for Wilton is red. The Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil came to Cape Breton and seemed as if he couldn't be more pleased with himself when he mocked the healthcare protesters who were outside or when he declared that Equalization gets "zero" attention. That was the statement that caused the biggest response in social media and news media after the event.



With that statement, the Premier may have singlehandedly terminated Wilton's chances of becoming an MLA again. However, if Wilton is able to pull out the win while sandwiched between a strong NDP candidate (Coombes) and a Tim Houston-lead PC (Piovesan), that will show that voters are clearly rewarding the Liberals for announcing the healthcare and Marconi projects.

Derek Mombourquette and Geoff MacLellan should watch closely too because Wilton's outcome will give them a greater sense of how at risk they'll be in the next election. Both MLAs survived the 2017 elections by narrow margins, much too close for comfort.

Problem number two is orange. Tammy Martin beat Wilton the last time out despite him being the incumbent MLA (on her second try). NDP voters will be quite consistent, and Kendra Coombes is about as popular as Martin and likely more so. She's been one of the top CBRM councillors against a backdrop of relative mediocrity. With that said, she would have been a top performer even among a qualified Council comprised of people more interested in the role itself than a hefty retirement supplement. She's educated and has an off-the-charts aptitude for a political role. She's also organized, knows how to run a solid door-knocking campaign, and even has the nod of support from former unbeatable CBRM Mayor John Morgan, who finally emerged from obscurity to announce his return to politics under the NPD banner.

Problem number three is blue. In 2013, Wilton lost to Frank Corbett. But his run was respectable, with a margin of only a couple of hundred votes between the men. When he made his second attempt in the 2015 by-election, Tammy Martin wasn't able to match Corbett's support in her first try and Wilton walked away as the new MLA with a solid win.

But we have to look a little more closely. Wilton's solid run against Corbett and his win against Martin was made possible because the PCs twice ran a candidate that couldn't break the thousand vote mark.

When the PCs realized they needed a stronger candidate, they recruited Louis Piovesan. Piovesan more than doubled the previous PC candidate, Edna Lee's vote tally in his first attempt. Piovesan stripped those votes away from Wilton and secured the win for Martin in her second attempt as a side effect.

Unfortunately for Wilton, Piovesan is running again and this time he's backed by a popular provincial PC leader that has pledged $15 Million more in provincial equalization transfer for the CBRM.

Thus, we should expect Piovesan to perform at or better than his 2017 results, draining votes away from Wilton. Even if Piovesan does not win, keeping the riding out of Liberal hands is helpful to Tim Houston and the PCs.

Given that Wilton's votes will be stripped by Piovesan, and Coombes is as solid, if not more than Martin, the odd's are stacked against Wilton.

Kendra Coombes is likely to become the next MLA for Cape Breton Centre.

If Wilton wins in spite of his red, orange, and blue problems, Mombourquette and MacLellan will be able to breathe a sigh of relief. They'll know the capital spending is resonating with voters. Both of them will be running against candidates that came close to unseating them the last time (Madonna Doucette, NDP; and John White, PC). If those Liberal investments don't pay off as intended, they may need to start negotiating career opportunities within their Liberal network.

However, if Wilton's vote tally slides more this time around, they'll have their indication that they have a lot of work to do.

Did you know that Stephen McNeil's government coming to power in Nova Scotia has resulted in the CBRM paying more to the province for mandatory service fees than they send to us in the equalization transfer?

No only are we taking a loss each year, the gap is getting wider and wider each year. When Premier McNeil says equalization gets zero attention, that means two things:

He's not going to send us any more transfer money, despite the province receiving more from the federal government each year.

And he doesn't care that our service fees keep growing each year, eating away at the CBRM budget and forcing us to look for cuts.

The Premier is Wilton's boss, so Wilton will have to remain obedient and let the chart you see below get even worse next year again.

NOTE: The views expressed above are my own and do not represent lokol (goCapeBreton.com). Read more