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P.E.I. Elections: The Million-Acre Farm
If the province of P.E.I. had a campaign slogan it would be of the "go big or go home" genre. From Liberal landslides to Tory sweeps, P.E.I. elections have been showy and dramatic changings of the guard. But despite the spectacular overthrows, campaigns have been conducted as a sport of etiquette. CBC has covered the continuing electoral spectacle as Islanders waffled between the Liberal and Tory tides, confronted issues of party patronage, and elected the first woman and non-European premiers in Canada.
• MacLean's Conservatives won the 1979 election capturing 21 seats to the Liberals' 11. MacLean defeated William Bennett Campbell, who had been appointed premier following Alex Campbell's resignation in 1978.
• Over the course of his term in the premier's office, MacLean emphasized and promoted conservation and a rural way of living. He banned new shopping malls and rejected involvement in New Brunswick's Point Lepreau nuclear reactor development.
• MacLean served as premier from 1979 to 1981 before retiring as premier and handing over the leadership to Jim Lee. MacLean remained active in politics and continued to be an MLA for one more year before formally retiring in 1982.
• MacLean, a pilot who served with the RCAF from 1939 to 1947, was widely regarded as a war hero. In June 1942, his plane was shot down over Holland and he spent 10 weeks trying to make his way to safety. He detailed his experience behind enemy lines in his 1998 memoir Making It Home.
• MacLean died Feb. 15, 2000, in Charlottetown at the age of 85.
Program: CBC News
Broadcast Date: April 24, 1978
Guest(s): Angus MacLean
Duration: 1:20
Last updated: March 9, 2012
Page consulted on March 26, 2013
All Clips from this Topic
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Young Liberal Alex Campbell woos voters with his visionary politics.
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Tory leader Angus MacLean seeks a rural renaissance.
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A history of P.E.I. politics.
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Generation after generation has maintained party loyalty but now that ...
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Peter Gzowski sits down with P.E.I.'s new premier, Joe Ghiz.
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Party loyalty, rewards and punishment run deep and damaging.
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P.E.I. premier Joe Ghiz shares his family Caesar salad recipe with Pet...
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Catherine Callbeck makes her bid for the leadership.
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Public servants protest Premier Callbeck's paycuts.
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Islanders take an active interest in politics.
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Voters struggle with the new electoral map.
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Pat Binns leads the Conservatives to power and the electoral map is re...
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Herb Dickieson wins the first seat for the NDP on the Island.
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Islanders contemplate a new system of voting to balance party represen...
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A Liberal tide sweeps Pat Binn's Tories from power, bringing in a new ...
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If the province of P.E.I. had a campaign slogan it would be of the "go...