Sydney - Victoria

This riding is on the north shore of Cape Breton Island and stretches from Bras d'Or Lake in the southwest to Cabot Strait and St. Paul Island in the northeast. Sydney is the largest centre, along with North Sydney, Sydney Mines and New Waterford. There are also three Mi'kmaq reserves, Membertou, Eskasoni and Wagmatcook.

Service industries and retail trade are major employers. Tourism is important, with Cape Breton Highlands National Park and the scenic Cabot Trail in the north of the riding.

According to the 2006 census, the population is 93 per cent English speaking, with Mi'kmaq making up the second-largest language group at almost four per cent. The aboriginal population is listed at just over six per cent. Average family income is $57,777 and there is an unemployment rate of 17.3 per cent, one of the highest in Canada.

In the 2004 redistribution, most of the riding was unchanged, but four per cent of Bras d'Or-Cape Breton was added in the south. The riding was created in the 1996 redistribution from all of Cape Breton-The Sydneys, 22 per cent of Cape Breton-East Richmond and six per cent of Cape Breton Highlands-Canso.

Population: 76,801 (2006 census; a decrease of 3.1% since 2001)

Political History

Liberal MP Mark Eyking won a comfortable victory in 2006, beating New Democrat John Hugh Edwards with slightly less than 50 per cent of the total vote.

It was only a slightly less decisive victory than 2004, when Eyking defeated Edwards by more than 9,000 votes. The former ridings of Cape Breton North and Victoria were Liberal from 1935 to 1953. PC Robert Muir was MP from 1957 to 1974. Liberal Russell MacLellan won in 1979, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1993.

Cape Breton-The Sydneys:

• 1968, 1972, 1974 - PC
• 1979-1993 - LIB

Sydney-Victoria:

• 1997 - NDP
• 2000, 2004, 2006 - LIB