'We've made remarkable strides': Premier MacLauchlan reflects on 2017
Lost byelection about local candidates, says MacLauchlan
P.E.I. Premier Wade MacLauchlan sat down with CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin last week to look back on 2017.
This is an edited transcript of that interview.
What message did you take away from the Green Party win in the November byelection?
"We always say about byelections these are a local matter. People are selecting their local representative from a cast of four. We've had two byelections since I became premier. We won one of them and came second in the other."
"As I see it every day is a new day. You keep learning, you keep going, and you keep making your case, and working in the best interest of Islanders. That's what we're all there for and that's what we're committed to."
"We're in a good time for our province. I say, in electoral terms, if Islanders are doing well I'll do well, and I believe that's the spot I'm in at the end of this year and I'm happy about that."
Was it appropriate for Peter Bevan-Baker to be thrown out of the legislature for using the word 'farce?'
"That's the Speaker's ruling and it's absolutely the part of the MLAs to support the Speaker and to support our legislative process and indeed I think it was unparliamentary."
"Let me put that in the larger context. The stage, I might say, on which his act played out was the completion of a session, a very busy and productive session — 17 new laws, the second biggest capital budget in history — but the three laws that were being objected to — the Water Act, the lobbyist registry, and the Public Interest Disclosure and Whistleblower Protection [Act] — are all laws that are in the public interest."
"It was very disappointing, frankly, to get to the end of all that, to be past second reading, and then to have what I consider to be an act that went too far."
Why does P.E.I. continue to take deposits from immigrants? It seems to be the most controversial part of the province's immigration program.
"Everybody is still receiving investor immigrants. It meant a lot to our business community and to our economy either in new businesses or in succession in businesses that have been established. If you go, for example, to Cavendish, a big part of the new generation or the passing from generation to generation in the tourism sector would not happen without the PNP.
"If you look around Charlottetown, and look around Charlottetown over time, there are some very important parts of our business community and, in turn, what Islanders get to enjoy and see as the changing face of Prince Edward Island that has come about through that investor program."
The new whistleblowers protection act involves deputy ministers investigating and reporting on wrongdoing. Opposition tried to amend the bill to make it arms-length. Why not do that?
"I think that's a fundamental misconception of why you have whistleblower protection or why you have public interest disclosure regime. The deputy minister is the administrative head of the department. You couldn't run a public service without deputy ministers and really what whistleblower legislation does is build a culture within a public service where people feel protected when they make disclosures, and are encouraged to make disclosures. There's a crucial part for the deputy ministers in leading that effort."
"It has to be part of government. It's the public service, and you have to engage the leadership of the public service, of the departments and the agencies, in order to have in place a regime that works."
"In circumstances where a person making a disclosure would prefer to take another route, that's where the commissioner of public interest disclosure has been appointed and does have that independence should it be desirable to go that route."
How would you characterize the state of the mental health system on P.E.I.?
"You start with a challenge in terms of recruitment of your key professionals: psychiatrists and psychologists. We've got a great team here, but we don't have our positions all filled. That recruitment goes on. What has happened over the last 12 to 18 months is an awareness, an engagement, a lot of innovation and effort to put in place measures that will respond to the needs."
"The walk-in clinics, about 600 people have benefited from those … The school support teams, new, eventually to be rolled out by 2019 to all of the families of schools, already 130 students have benefited … There's a seniors mental health resource team that actually visits people in their homes … The women's reproductive health care centre, they've served more people who have post-partum symptoms, and then a further one, the Insight program for young people."
Was your decision earlier this year to not close schools the right one?
"Oh yes. It was one of those things that came out of a lengthy process, but it was a process that needed be undertaken in the sense that it hadn't been done for roughly a decade."
"One of the things we learned through that school review process is the concern may not be for classrooms and teachers, it may be for the support side. And that came out in certain parts of the province, and that's why we've responded with quite a robust initiative and resources eventually on the order of about $6 million when that's fully rolled out."
Some schools are still overcrowded.
"The response to students who are coming as part of our growing immigrant population is something you deal with as things unfold."
"The thing that really stands out in this is it's a good problem to have. That's to say, and I'm serious about this, to have a growing population when most parts of our country outside of the big urban centres are looking at a declining and aging population. That's been the biggest breakthrough we've had in a very short period of time, is our population is growing faster than we were even projecting, and it's getting younger."
Let's talk about the Water Act. Why not put rules regarding high-capacity wells in the legislation?
"The ability to deal with high-capacity wells through permits is there. The real point is to continue to learn and gather evidence about the volume, the quality, of our water."
"It's not unusual. Anything you do in public policy or anything that government does, where there's something to be learned you should learn it, and then act."
Which of your accomplishments are you most proud of in 2017?
"When I got into public life, which is not that long ago, the two things that were most on my mind were whether our economy and whether our population is sustainable. And I had real concerns about both. In that short time, still less than three years, we've made remarkable strides."
"Our population, in 2016-17, got younger for the first time since 1968. That's historic. We're bending the arc."
"Our economy … is outperforming our neighbours here in the region and indeed over the last number of years has outperformed the Canadian economy. That is historic. Prince Edward Island is not used to that."
What are the biggest challenges you think you face in the coming year?
"The two that are directly related to what I just said are housing and workforce development."
"We have good jobs in this province that are looking for people to do them. That's a good problem to have but you have to do something about it. In that case we need to work with the employers, the productive sectors, the communities, because the communities have a big part to play in this, to ensure that we are looking ahead and also responding to the current [need]."
"Housing will be a challenge. It's a supply issue. Demand is up for obvious reasons, the economy, the population. So we've created a housing supply task force. This group, it's mainly community-based and private-sector based, will work actively together with government to identify what actually is taking place."
What are you most looking forward to in 2018?
"I'm looking forward to having, and I believe I now have, a work-life balance. I've got lots of great friends and a great community and home life and that's something that I want every Islander to have and enjoy."
"The thing I love most about my job is to just get around. I, of course, have friends who are premiers in other jurisdictions, but in P.E.I. I can just jump in my vehicle and show up and people will tell you what they're doing. They'll tell you their problems but they are, in the main, glad to take part in and be part of a province where the premier is around, and that's one of the great benefits of this job."
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With files from CBC News: Compass