Cape Breton West

Candidates

Current MLA: Alfie MacLeod (PC)

District profile: This is a largely rural area, stretching across much of eastern Cape Breton. The district extends right across to the Atlantic coast, taking in smaller, scattered communities such as Louisbourg and Marion Bridge on the Mira River.

It takes in the suburban area just outside Sydney consisting of Sydney River, Howie Centre and Sydney Forks.It's also home to the province's largest First Nations community at Eskasoni.

This is a generally prosperous area. Tourism, including the Fortress of Louisbourg, and a service-based economy generate most of the jobs. Fishing is important, too, particularly along the Atlantic coast.

District map: Cape Breton West (PDF)

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2006 results

Voter turnout: 62.12 per cent in 2006

Political history

Russell MacKinnon, a land surveyor by training, loomed large over this riding for almost two decades.

He was first elected in 1988, as a Liberal. Then, he resigned the seat in 1995 to protest his government's creation of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, a forced amalgamation of several smaller municipalities.

Progressive Conservative Alfie MacLeod won the seat in the byelection that followed, but MacKinnon won it back as a Liberal in 1998.

Then, after winning re-election in both 1999 and 2003, MacKinnon split with the Liberals in April 2005 after what he called "a difference of opinion." He sat as an Independent and was not on the ballot a year later when MacLeod reclaimed the seat for the PCs.