Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie answered questions on many topics at the party's annual meeting. (CBC)

Improving Tory fortunes in Halifax was on the minds of Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives Sunday as they had a chance to quiz their leader about how he'll win some more seats in the vote-rich provincial capital.

It was among a number of questions Jamie Baillie fielded at a question-and-answer session at the close of the party's annual meeting.

The Halifax Regional Municipality is a political desert for the Tories. They hold no seats in the province's dominant urban area. Some electoral districts, such as Halifax Chebucto and Halifax Needham, have not seen Tory blue in more than 20 years.

Baillie told the crowd at the Harbourfront Marriott Hotel the solution starts with putting great candidates forward. He said it's important to address local issues such as taking advantage of the major federal shipbuilding contract that is coming to the city.

"The development of business, the growth of our tax base... I believe the PC party is talking about issues that are important to HRM," Baillie said after the event.

"That's why we're seeing a greater interest within HRM."

The Tory leader was also asked about the government's recent 1.3 per cent funding cut to the province's eight school boards.

Baillie said he wants to see cuts to education's bureaucracy rather than reducing funding to school boards.

"I happen to believe as someone who wants to balance the budget as much as anyone that the last place to go is to our classrooms and that's the opposite of what the NDP government is doing."

NDP MLA Becky Kent defended the cut, reiterating that provincial enrolment is declining.

"Our government feels very clearly... that the money that is going from our taxpayer dollars should be going straight to those students in those schools."

Other party members brought up the need to reinstate the Yarmouth ferry service, which Baillie referred to as the "Nova Scotia ferry that docks in Yarmouth."

"That's a message I hear everywhere in our province," he said.

"Everyone is focused on the massive mistake that the government made in cancelling that Yarmouth ferry. ...It's part of our economic future and that's something that we know that the NDP clearly didn't understand."

Kent, the MLA for Cole Harbour in Dartmouth, said the government would be willing to look at a business case for the ferry if one was to come forward.

"We haven't walked away from the table completely but we're not prepared to continue to go down the road of something that is not in the best interest of all Nova Scotians."