Sterling Belliveau

Belliveau served for three terms as a municipal councillor representing District 1 (Charlesville, Forbes Point and Woods Harbour) on the municipal council for the Municipality of the District of Barrington; two of those terms he served as warden.

In 2006 Belliveau successfully ran for the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party nomination in the constituency of Shelburne. He was elected in the 2006 provincial election, defeating Progressive Conservative candidate Eddie Nickerson by 65 votes.[1][2] He was re-elected in the 2009 provincial election, receiving 55.41% of the votes and increasing his vote to 2,207 over his closest challenger.[3][4] Belliveau's riding was abolished in the 2012 electoral boundary review. Belliveau was re-elected in the 2013 provincial election representing the new riding of Queens-Shelburne where he received 37.1% of the votes with a margin of 381 votes over his closest challenger.

On June 19, 2009 Belliveau was appointed to the Executive Council of Nova Scotia, serving as Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture as well as Minister of Environment.[5] He served in the Executive Council until October 22, 2013.

In June 2016, Belliveau announced that he is not reoffering in the 2017 Nova Scotia general election.[6]

On February 4, 2021 Belliveau announced he was seeking the Progressive Conservative nomination to run in his former seat as MLA in the reorganized constituency of Queens-Shelburne.[7][8] In the previous year, Belliveau had re-entered the public view over the 2020 Mi'kmaq lobster dispute, at the time calling for a one year pause to the Miꞌkmaq moderate livelihood fishery organized by the Sipekneꞌkatik First Nation. Belliveau was quoted as saying, "I can assure you the commercial industry feels they have not had an opportunity to have their voices heard at the table," indicating that he believed Mi'kmaq livelihood fishing affirmed under the The Marshall Decision must be tied to the commercial fishing season.[9] Acknowledging his shift from the NDP to Conservative, Belliveau noted he believed the switch would be more likely to result in a win for him, and stated that he was unhappy with the Federal NDP's stance on the ongoing fisheries issue,[10] which contrary to Belliveau, supports an indigenous moderate livelihood fishery apart from the commercial season.[11]