Court process starts for Liberal recount applications in three closely contested districts

The future of the Progressive Conservative's majority government status is now before the courts following the Liberals' request for a judicial recount in the districts of Placentia West-Bellevue, Topsail-Paradise and Lewisporte-Twillingate.

The PCs currently hold a thin majority with 21 seats in the House of Assembly. If one seat changes from blue to red, the PCs will hold a minority government.

The Liberals are challenging the results of three seats in districts where the party considered the election results narrow.

Liberal incumbent Derek Bennett was the first to submit a recount application  after losing his seat in Lewisporte-Twillingate to PC Mark Butt by only 18 votes.

Days later, the party submitted two more recount applications for the districts of Placentia West-Bellevue and Topsail-Paradise, where Liberal Brian Keating lost to Progressive Conservative incumbent Jeff Dwyer by 64 votes on election night, and Liberal Dan Bobbett lost his race to PC incumbent Paul Dinn, with a 102-vote lead.

Adrienne Ding, the lawyer representing the three PC MHA-elects, said it's been a frustrating time for her clients.

“Those three districts deserve to have a representative and right now we have three MHAs who can’t respond to their constituents,” Ding told reporters on Friday.

“It doesn’t serve the province not to have certainty on the election results.”

Lawyer Megan Reynolds, who is a former Liberal nomination candidate for St. John’s East-Quidi Vidi, is representing the three Liberal candidates.

Bennett was the only Liberal candidate in the courtroom on Friday. With an 18-vote difference, his district is the only one in proximity to the province’s 10-vote margin for electoral recounts.  

“It’s a very near margin. Just a little over the threshold, so I am very optimistic that it will go forward,” he told reporters.

The province has a high threshold for electoral recounts for circumstances that fall outside of a 10-vote margin. In fact, a judge denied a recount for former NDP leader Alison Coffin in 2021, when she lost to former Liberal John Abbott by 53 votes.

Bennett said he respects the court and electoral process, and he’s keeping busy while the results are in limbo.

“It gives me time to do a few things around my home that I neglected for the last 10 years while I was in politics,” he said, adding that he is still responding to the district's constituents who need some support in the meantime.