Former UPEI president Wade MacLauchlan O’Brien Fellow (1982)
Anne of Green Gables, a former premier and China have been keeping Wade MacLauchlan busy since he stepped down as University of Prince Edward Island president.
The longtime academic spent eight years each as a law professor at Dalhousie University and the University of New Brunswick before heading up UPEI from 1999 to 2011.
He and some business partners recently transcribed the classic Lucy Maud Montgomery story Anne of Green Gables into Mandarin for the Chinese market. Red Haired Anne, as it is known there, has been shortlisted as one of the 50 most influential books published in China in 2012 by state news agency Xinhua.
MacLauchlan is also working on a biography of longtime P.E.I. premier Alexander Campbell. This week, MacLauchlan is being honoured at a dinner thrown by Canada’s Public Policy Forum as one of three influential Atlantic Canadians.
The other honourees are Clearwater Fine Foods president John Risley and former New Brunswick lieutenant-governor Margaret McCain.
MacLauchlan spoke to The Chronicle Herald about the challenges, and their solutions, facing the Maritimes. His responses have been edited for length.
Q: Are there any qualities of Alexander Campbell you think the leaders of today should learn from?
A: One of the things that he was exceptionally good at was listening. That’s something that I don’t think politicians have been particularly encouraged to do lately. There was a piece I was reading earlier this morning looking at what the Republicans thought was Obama’s surprising success in the 2012 presidential election. They’re referring to that whole ground effort, what’s called ‘micro-listening.’ I think anybody in public life has to be exceptionally good at that and sincere about it.
Q: Do you feel, as some do, that the Maritimes need to make deep, substantive changes to how we do things?
A: I don’t think we have any choice at all. If you look at the demographics or if you look at our ability to influence the rest of the world or the rest of Canada, it’s not business as usual. That’s not to be pessimistic, but I think perhaps one of the reasons people don’t face up to the current extent of our challenges is they’re afraid it might be depressing. But we’ve been through tough things before in the 19th century or through war efforts or through massive out-migration.
I don’t think we should, for any reason, ignore some of the most obvious of our challenges.
Q: What are the biggest challenges?
A: The largest challenge, by far, is demographics. When we look at what we know about our current population and its makeup and the very predictable factors that contribute to the trends in our population, there’s going to be fewer of us, and we’re going to be older. Those are limiting conditions when it comes to growth. We can see at many points in our history that if we don’t have growth, if we don’t have opportunities, the most mobile in our population choose to go elsewhere. And that only speeds up the process.
Q: How do we tackle those issues?
A: We have to start by recognizing our advantages. Most people who look at the Atlantic region and ask what have we got going for us will list our post-secondary institutions right at the top of our list.
Another aspect that I’m really proud about is the extent of collaboration among the universities in the region, which is something many people have worked at and on which there’s been a lot of leadership.
We’ve got, I would say in the Canadian context, a better-than-average record of business leadership and entrepreneurship, and people going at that with a sense of community and even camaraderie. That’s very much rooted in who we are.
We need to be sure to know what our assets are and what our strengths are.
Q: Many students come to the region from elsewhere for our universities. How do we convince them to stay afterward?
A: The question is of opportunities for students and graduates. Whether they come from our own provinces, or across Canada or other countries, when it comes down to it, people need to get experience in industry and opportunities in order for them to stay around. Unless there’s an overall commitment to that, including from employers, then we shouldn’t be surprised if most people are looking for opportunities elsewhere.
We currently have our public policy priorities set, so we’re spending increasingly large amounts on health and post-retirement benefits for very senior age groups. Unless we’re going to start addressing more fully whether there are opportunities for that 15-to-24-year-old group, we’re not going to be able to play those bills for long.
Author: Paul McLeod is The Chronicle Herald's Ottawa Bureau chief.
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