Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Zach Churchill’s passion for politics started early

HALIFAX — Zach Churchill freely admits he’s a career politician.

The leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal party — first elected to the legislature when he was 26 — makes no apologies for dedicating his working life to public service, saying his experience has been invaluable during a provincial election campaign that has just over a week to go.

“This has been my life’s passion and I’ve been very fortunate to do it for this long,” the 40-year-old former cabinet minister said during an interview Friday with The Canadian Press. “I don’t think there’s anybody who can better relate to people than those in service-related positions.”

Churchill said that as an only child growing up in Yarmouth, N.S., he was the centre of attention within the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon. “I come by that inclination naturally,” he said.

In high school, he was lead singer in a rock band called Oden. And when he was cut from the basketball team, he ran for student council co-president and won. While studying history and religion at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, he became known for painting his face and acting like a maniac at Huskies football games.

After university, Churchill served as national director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations in Ottawa for two years before being hired for a brief stint as a senior policy analyst with the federal Department of Human Resources.

When a provincial byelection was called in Yarmouth in 2010, he returned home and was elected to the legislature for the first time. He was the first Lebanese-Canadian to win a seat in the Nova Scotia house of assembly.

He and his wife Katie — an optometrist in Yarmouth — have two young daughters, Cecelia and Eva.

After the Liberals won a majority in 2013, he held several cabinet portfolios, including health, education, natural resources and municipal affairs. One of his most notable accomplishments was introducing Nova Scotia’s universal pre-primary program for four-year-olds, and he also served briefly as health minister during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But his tenure in cabinet was also marked by an ugly incident in March 2019, when Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston accused Churchill of assaulting him during a heated argument outside the legislative chamber. Churchill denied attacking Houston, but he admitted losing his temper with the man who would go on to lead the Tories to victory in 2021, ending almost eight years of Liberal rule.

“What I learned from it was that I make my biggest mistakes when I’m angry,” Churchill said during the interview. “I had words with Mr. Houston … and then he falsely accused me of assaulting him. It was also a learning moment for me in terms of what he might be willing to do to win a political battle.”

Churchill was elected to lead the Liberals in July 2022.

With voting day in Nova Scotia set for Nov. 26, the latest polls suggest the Progressive Conservatives are leading by a wide margin, with the New Democrats — led by Claudia Chender — and Churchill’s Liberals in a tight race for second.

Among the pledges in the Liberal platform are: reducing the harmonized sales tax to 13 per cent from 15 per cent; removing the HST from all groceries; shrinking income taxes; providing free public transit; building 80,000 homes by 2032; building more non-profit housing; establishing a rent bank; and building more collaborative health-care facilities.

As the campaign enters its final phase, Churchill has been critical of the premier’s decision to ignore the first piece of legislation the Tory government passed in October 2021: a law that set July 15, 2025 as the date for the next election.

At the time, Houston said the law would “limit any perceived advantage by the government to control the timing of the next election.” But with the Tories riding high in the polls last month, Houston jettisoned that commitment and called a snap election, arguing that he needed a new mandate to deal with an affordability crisis and to “stand up” to Ottawa.

“There’s a lot of shock, surprise and confusion over why there’s an election happening right now,” Churchill said in the interview. “People are not really buying the reasons for it.”

During a televised leaders debate on Thursday, Churchill said Houston’s failure to keep his fixed-date promise was proof the premier is more interested power than accountability.

“This election is not about you,” Churchill told viewers as he looked directly into the camera. “It’s about him.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2024.

Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press