A candidate who ran on generational and climate change has won the race to become the next premier of the East Coast Province of Nova Scotia.
Iain Rankin, who is 37, is a former provincial lands and forests minister.
He appears crystal clear about the challenges the faces.
“It’s a monumental task and I’m up for it,” he told a virtual convention Saturday night after he won the leadership of the provincial Liberal Party–automatically making him the premier-designate.
Rankin will succeed Stephen McNeil, who announced last summer that he would step down when a new leader was elected.
The change-over will occur in the coming weeks, though no timetable has been announced.
Iain Rankin said in December he would set Nova Scotia on a path to 80 per cent renewable energy by 2030 — more than double the 30 per cent that Nova Scotia Power currently generates with renewable sources. (CBC/Dave Irish)
Rankin–the youngest candidate in the leadership race–defeated two other former cabinet ministers who served under McNeil: former labour minister Labi Kousoulis and Randy Delorey, who once held the province’s health, finance and environment portfolios
Rankin ran on a platform of generational change, linking economic pledges with environmental concerns.
Among his campaign pledges was a promise to end Nova Scotia’s use of coal to generate electricity by 2030 and to have 80 per cent of Nova Scotia’s energy coming from renewable sources by that same year–making the province the first in the country to be net carbon neutral.
He also promised to implement the recommendations made in a review published in 2018, known as the Lahey Report, on forestry practices, which called for a major reduction in clear-cutting that advocates say has been lagging.
The Lahey Report was released in August 2018, but two years later large sections of Nova Scotia’s forests are still being clear cut, advocates say. (Name withheld by request)
“Obviously, younger people want to see action on a number of files that I spoke to, but the Liberal Party has always been a pragmatic party and one that really valued social progress,” Rankin said on Saturday.
While reaffirming environmental commitments on Saturday, the CBC’s Michael Gorman reported that Rankin said his first priority was to maintain the province’s successful efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
And, Gorman reports, Rankin pledged “to follow McNeil’s example of allowing the advice of Public Health, not politics, to take precedence in making decisions.”
As of Monday morning, 1,585 COVID-19 cases had been reported in Nova Scotia since the start of the pandemic. Of those, 65 were fatal.
Canada’s Atlantic Provinces have fared better than much of Canada in fighting the pandemic because of the so-called Atlantic Bubble, which limited travel to the region.
With files from CBC News (Michael Gorman), The Canadian Press
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