Even the man at the centre of the storm sounds a bit incredulous that it is happening to him. Wayne Easter, just a few years away from being National Farmers Union president and a not-so-closet New Democrat, is being told by many in his party that he can become Liberal premier of Prince Edward Island this autumn if he wants to be.
Premier Wayne Easter?
“The pressure has been incredible,” Easter said last week. “Cabinet ministers, MLAs, party members, … people who just a few years ago had nothing good to say about me are calling me up to offer support.” For the record, Easter says he is not likely to take the plunge.
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Late last week, he issued the not-entirely-definitive disclaimer: “I can’t see myself running in 1996.” He is in his first term as a Liberal MP from the island. His instincts and interests are federal.
“There is no question it is possible but not very probable,” he said in Ottawa, on the way back home for more meetings and arm-twisting.
The reason for the political frenzy is that Liberal premier Catherine Callbeck, the first woman ever elected provincial premier in Canada, is calling it quits little more than a year away from an election.
Although her Liberals won 31 of 32 Legislature seats just over three years ago, Callbeck’s budget-cutting and program reforms have made her increasingly unpopular.
Easter, a surprise Liberal candidate in the 1993 federal election, holds her former seat in the House of Commons and has used his flair for hard work, left-of-centre positions and publicity to raise his profile as an MP.
The Charlottetown Guardian, the province’s main newspaper, says provincial Liberals are turning to the relatively recent convert to Liberalism because of that profile. The newspaper assessed his chances as good when compared to main rival Lawrence MacAulay, a low-key MP and the Island’s representative in the federal cabinet. “Easter is the fresher face. He escaped the (unemployment insurance reform) bloodbath with little personal image damage and he has the added bonus of left-wing credentials.”
In the end, the newspaper concludes he likely will stick around in Ottawa to earn an MP’s pension and to angle for MacAulay’s cabinet position.
Still, the fact that Easter is considered an instant front-runner for the premier’s job is nothing short of amazing.
Perhaps it signals a growing political sense that even in a rural, conservative province like P.E.I., voters are tiring of the non-stop budget-cutting and anti-government rhetoric of recent years.
Easter believes in the power of government to make society better, to help improve opportunities for those that the market economy and the power structure do not always favor.
And he believes in himself. “I think I could win it if I wanted it,”he says. Many P.E.I. Liberal heavy hitters clearly agree.
Even if he does not jump this time, Easter always can flatter himself with the memory that he probably could have been premier. Not bad for a political newcomer just a few years off the farm.
