SYDNEY, N.S. — The Nova Scotia election appears to be heating up in two Cape Breton ridings.
Candidates for the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives (PC) and New Democratic Party (NDP) spoke out Thursday about anonymous attack flyers against sitting MLAs in Sydney-Membertou and Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg.
"It's upsetting, right? You put your name forward to try and improve your community," said PC candidate Brian Comer.
Comer says he found a flyer Thursday morning calling him a "puppet' who 'will never fight for the needs of Cape Breton" on the windshield of his vehicle in the driveway of his home. He says that dropping the leaflet off on his property crosses a line.
"I have two small children. My wife spent the morning setting up a security camera at our home. Which I mean, is completely inappropriate," Comer told CTV Atlantic.
Derek Mombourquette, Liberal candidate for Sydney-Membertou, says similar anonymous messages targeting him were found in mailboxes in his riding.
"Honestly, we're not focusing on it. We're running a positive campaign. I've had lots of great conversations with constituents here," Mombourquette said.
Madonna Doucette, the NDP Candidate in Sydney-Membertou, said while she might not agree with the anonymity of the flyers, she does agree with the message.
"It's a little bit of a cowardly act, to just anonymously criticize people," Doucette said. "(But it's) freedom of speech, I guess. It's not something that we're putting out, from our team. But you know, people do kind of feel that way about the current batch of elected MLAs."
Meanwhile, members of the Nova Scotians for Equalization Fairness group protested Thursday afternoon outside the offices of both MLAs who received the unsigned leaflets. However, they denied that their organization had anything to do with those papers.
"No. No. I don't know who put them there," said Albert Maroun.
Fellow NSEF member Charles Sampson added. "If we put any flyers out, or any information out. We will put our label on it."
The protesters said they were there simply because when it comes to equalization payments, Cape Breton isn't getting its fair share, and that the MLAs in question refused to meet with them.
"Numbers don't lie. So they don't want to talk to us, because they have no argument. So that's why we're protesting today," said Maroun.
While the identity of who distributed the attack leaflets may never be known, one thing everyone could agree upon Thursday was that in these two ridings, the campaign is heating up in the final days before Election Day on Tuesday.
