Features

It said something when Gerry Reid took the Liberal caravan to Bellevue district, not to mention on Port de Grave, on Monday, just as the campaign was officially kicking into gear. (It says something, too, that Danny Williams went to Lake Melville on Tuesday, but we'll get to that later.)

Bellevue used to have the reputation as being one of those "yellow dog" districts – you know, the sort of place in days of yore where the Liberals could run just about anyone and count on a victory. Bellevue, as we basically know it, was created in 1975, but voters in the area were so loyal to Smallwood Liberalism that they stuck with him and elected Wilson Callan that year as their representative.

Callan later joined up with the Liberals, and sat with them for years – until 1988, when he crossed the floor to join the Tories in the final months of the Brian Peckford era.

That, really, was about as close as the Tories have come to electoral success in Bellevue. Percy Barrett won the seat in 1989 for the Liberals, and did so in every election since then.

But let's look closely at the 2003 results.

You may remember Barrett squeaking through that race over PC challenger Joan Cleary, with just 100 votes.
But those results would have been different, if the redistribution now in place for this election had been in effect for that one.

Different enough, indeed, to have given the Tories the win. Under redistribution, the PCs would have won that race by 16 votes.

In most districts, the addition or subtraction of votes would not have made much difference. Bellevue is one of the cases where things are different – and you can be sure that the parties are perfectly aware of that, in what's expected to be a competitive race.
- John Gushue