New Nova Scotia premier-to-be Iain Rankin faces headwinds

Iain Rankin’s got his work cut out for him.

The 37-year-old premierdesignate, who won the Liberal leadership on Feb. 6, has barely a month to finalize what he predicts will be an “ambitious” legislative agenda, including a budget, before the legislature convenes with a throne speech in early March.

He has to name a cabinet, balancing drawing on those who will run in the next election with ensuring he uses the experience available in his caucus.

Rankin will be expected to continue his predecessor’s widely-praised handling of the COVID-19 crisis, while ensuring vaccinations roll out across Nova Scotia this year as logically, and expeditiously, as possible.

Critically, he’s also got to rebuild this province’s virusravaged economy, while managing fallout from related massive, and growing, government debt.

Before the pandemic, Premier Stephen McNeil’s government had overseen promising growth in the province’s economy; it’ll be up to his successor to constructively build — or as Rankin put it, evolve — those policies.

In short, if Rankin hopes to keep his new premier’s title, the former Environment and Lands and Forestry minister has little more than a year — at most — to make his mark before having to lead his razorthin majority government into an election.

It’s a tall order.

But Rankin already exceeded expectations, in at least some corners, by coming out on top for the party’s leadership over perceived front-runner Randy Delorey (who was dropped after the first round) and wellorganized runner-up Labi Kousoulis.

The premier-designate, who’s expected to be sworn in within a few weeks, campaigned as the candidate for generational change.

Most prominently, Rankin put green policies, and growing a green economy, at the centre of his platform, including taking an even more aggressive approach than Stephen McNeil on tackling climate change.

Rankin would like the province to be off coal entirely, while generating 80 per cent of power with renewable energy, by 2030. He hopes to make Nova Scotia the first province to be net carbon-neutral.

To help rebuild the economy, he’s promised to put together an economic growth council with business leaders. As long as its makeup is representative of the province’s diverse business sector, that’s a sound idea.

Rankin has also vowed to confront systemic racism.

And he has promised to implement the Lahey report’s recommendations on forestry, including reducing the controversial use of clearcutting.

Observers will be closely watching what he does regarding the controversial proposal for a golf course at Owls Head.

We welcome Rankin’s promise to try to be inclusive and listen to ideas from all sides. Nova Scotians tired of unnecessarily divisive partisan politics will appreciate the premier-designate’s stated intention to sit down with opposition leaders to discuss possible areas of common interest.

At the same time, we hope the province’s first millennial premier will restore some of the democratic deficit that accrued under McNeil’s watch, including restoring proper oversight powers to legislative committees.

Meanwhile, Rankin won’t be operating in a vacuum. The opposition has already been rolling out pre-election ads, including during the Super Bowl.

All eyes will be on the young premier in 2021, which promises to be another tough year.

But Iain Rankin knew what he was signing up for.