Nova Scotians will go to the polls on June 13, Conservative Premier Rodney MacDonald announced Saturday.

"Nova Scotians will have a chance to decide -- to decide the future of our province," MacDonald told supporters.

The announcement comes just three months after MacDonald was chosen by his party to replace former premier John Hamm, who retired.

At dissolution, the Tories had 25 seats, the NDP 15 and the Liberals 10. There is one vacancy and one Independent.

MacDonald currently leads a minority government, but recent polls suggest his support is high in the province.

He said his campaign "will be about who has the best plan for families and the best plan for their future."

MacDonald also said voters will judge his performance as premier based on the budget and throne speech his government prepared during his three months in office.

"I am very cognizant of the fact that I have been elected by my party, and not by the people of the province," MacDonald told CTV Newsnet on Saturday. "And I think it's important that they make the decision. If I am the premier that they want, if it is our party that they want -- on June 13 they will make that decision."

The 34-year-old former high school gym teacher from Cape Breton has experienced a honeymoon period with the province's voters so far. MacDonald is largely untested, however, and faced major challenges in the 90-day period before the election call.

MacDonald's Conservative government has made major announcements in recent days, promising to regulate gasoline prices and roll back the provincial sales tax to reduce the high cost of home heating.

But MacDonald's critics say those ideas were stolen from the provincial New Democratic Party, led by Darrell Dexter.

"There's a three-stage process for (Conservatives) when it comes to our ideas," Dexter said. "First they ridicule them. Then they viciously attack them. And then they adopt them."

MacDonald dismissed the allegations.

"The ideas that we put forward are Progressive Conservative ideas. They're also the ideas and values of Nova Scotians, and to me, that is what is important," he told CTV Newsnet.

The provincial Liberals, led by businessman Francis MacKenzie, are considered longshots to form a government.  The Conservatives mainly worked with the larger NDP, building a relatively stable minority government.

Election call follows spending announcements

The election call was expected by many. On Friday, the government wrapped up a busy week in the legislature by announcing a $26 million deal to purchase surplus land from the Bowater Mersey paper mill on the province's South Shore.

A lack of clarity about the details of the agreement caused critics to question whether the deal was a good business decision for the government, or simply part of a pre-election spending spree.

And last week, the government announced a $65 million deal to purchase land from the struggling Stora Enso paper mill in Point Tupper, N.S.

MacDonald said the expenditure was in the budget and had been planned ahead of time, but the move fuelled speculation that an election call was on the way.

"I think that if you look at the Stora deal and now the Bowater deal, it makes you wonder ... in particular (about) a close election call," said John MacDonnell, the NDP's natural resources critic.

A politics professor at Mount Saint Vincent University said the recently unveiled budget will have to be introduced again after the election.

"There will be a new legislative session and that budget would have to be reintroduced," Prof. Jeff MacLeod told CTV Atlantic. "Really, it's a political commitment perhaps, but certainly not a binding or legal one on the government."

With files from CTV Atlantic's Nicolle Carlin and Chantelle Jones