THE GAY ACADEMIC RUNNING TINY, CONSERVATIVE P.E.I.
P.E.I. isn’t ready for abortion, but it may be ready for a gay premier
Not even half way through the debate’s segment on abortion, the awkward pauses started and the moderator was forced to step in. “There’s still a minute left,” he said, live on TV in Prince Edward Island. But the Progressive Conservative candidate had nothing left to say. He already told the audience that abortions aren’t offered on the island and his party doesn’t plan to change that if it is elected on Monday. Neither, it seems, does the Liberal party.
So the moderator glanced at the producers, then cut the segment short and moved on to the next question.
This little island is often cast as a bastion of social conservatism in Canada. It is predominantly rural with 140,000 people, where you can throw a cat from anywhere and hit salt water, as one bar patron put it this week.
All this makes front-runner Wade MacLauchlan somewhat of an unlikely candidate.
MacLauchlan, an academic with little political experience, stands to be the first openly gay man to be elected premier in the province. But it hasn’t been a factor during the election campaign, he says.
“Absolutely zero,” the Liberal party leader told the National Post this week. “I’ve been open about the fact that I’m gay. And my partner has been front and centre as appropriate, we try to keep some home life and privacy as anyone with any sense would do.
“That has not come up at any doorstep or any of the discussions that I’ve had across the island,” he said, noting that P.E.I. was the first to elect both a female premier and a premier of non-European descent.
“In some ways this might be a hat trick.”
MacLauchlan is a tall and solid man with wavy, grey hair and a gravelly voice. He spent a decade as president of the province’s only university before swooping into provincial politics late last year when Liberal premier Joe Ghiz’s stepped down unexpectedly. He was sworn in as premier in February and also serves as the minister of finance, minister of aboriginal affairs, minister of Acadian affairs and minister of intergovernmental affairs.
“The entire Liberal caucus, and particularly the cabinet, instantly stepped aside when he announced he was running,” University of P.E.I. politics professor Don Desserud said. “There wasn’t even a token candidate running against him. That surprised me.”
But Desserud hesitates to call MacLauchlan an outsider or a fresh face, because there are few of those on Prince Edward Island. Everyone around here seems to have some personal connection to the man. The person in the seat next to me on the flight to Charlottetown sits on a board of directors with Wade MacLauchlan. And a bartender in a pub in a rural seaside village near the island’s eastern tip says her parents are “friends with Wade.”
“He’s a really interesting character,” said Desserud, who has known him for 20 years.
But MacLauchlan has inherited substantial baggage from the previous Liberal regime. Days after he was sworn in as premier in February, the Globe and Mail released a report on the government’s secret, failed attempt at bringing e-gambling to the province. Opposition leaders are also calling for an inquiry into allegations of fraud and bribery inside the government’s Provincial Nominee Program that saw P.E.I. nominate immigrant investors for permanent residency.
Asked about the scandals, MacLauchlan is quick to note that he’s an outsider.
“I don’t see myself being judged by or hampered by what people may view as the track record of the previous regime,” he said. “It’ll ultimately be up to Prince Edward Islanders and we’ll know by Monday night how they feel about that.”
The latest poll, commissioned by the Charlottetown Guardian last week, put the Liberal party at 44 per cent of the vote, nine points ahead of the PCs.
Throughout the campaign, the scandals haven’t come up as much as expected, Desserud said.
“It’s incredibly collegial here,” he said. “It should be enough of an issue that you could hammer away at it if you’re an opposition party, and why they’re reluctant to do so is a mystery.”
On Wednesday, spring had barely arrived on the island. It had snowed the day previous and now it was raining and there was a nasty wind blowing off the ocean in downtown Charlottetown. But after supper, people were out on the street in spite of the weather — most of them on their way to the Delta Prince Edward hotel for the ninth leaders debate.
During the previous election, this particular debate run by the teachers’ federation only attracted 40 spectators. This time around, it was expected to be about the same. But just before the debate, hundreds of people were streaming into the hotel, sending organizers scrambling to open up the adjacent ballroom.
More than 500 people, mostly teachers, packed into the hall until it was standing room only. In the ensuing hour and a half, none of the candidates shouted, or pointed an accusing finger or even stood up from their chairs. It was not so much a political debate as it was four men politely disagreeing with each other. At one point, the NDP and Green candidates high-fived.
“It gets to the point where you think, ‘It’s not quite right, something’s wrong with this,’ ” Desserud said.
But some excitement came at the end, when MacLauchlan gave his closing remarks, telling the teachers he’d be the first educator to be elected as premier in 40 years. PC leader Rob Lantz scoffed, saying he personally has more in common with teachers through helping his kids with their homework than MacLauchlan does through “teaching the one per cent ... at Harvard.”
At the back of the ballroom, a Liberal staffer walked over to his colleagues, shaking his head. “What’s that about?” he asked. MacLauchlan graduated from U PEI, the University of New Brunswick and Yale. He’s taught law at Dalhousie and UNB, served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada and is a member of the Order of Canada. But he never taught at Harvard.
“Lantz was wrong,” a Liberal spokesman said.
But despite the errant jab at MacLauchlan’s resumé Wednesday, relations between the two rivals has been cordial. At an earlier debate, Lantz applauded the Liberal party leader for “stepping forward as an openly gay man.”
“I think you are brave for doing so,” he said. “You know, I realize travelling this province that we do have a long way to go. I’ve lived in a bubble in Charlottetown. I think tolerance has come a long way in the city but we have a long way to go and it disappoints me sometimes.”
On Friday, a social advocacy group took an informal poll on Twitter, asking “How much of a factor has homophobia been in this election?”
“For little old P.E.I., we’re coming along,” said Jane Ledwelll of the P.E.I. Advisory Council on Status of Women, who wrote the tweet. “The general response that I’ve received is that people share a common sense of pride that there hasn’t been a lot of homophobic garbage.”