Former Cabinet Minister Mulling Liberal Leadership Run

HALIFAX – A former Liberal MLA and cabinet minister in the Stephen McNeil administration is still weighing his political options, following McNeil’s surprise announcement that he will be stepping away from the Premier’s chair early in 2021.

Michel Samson served as Liberal MLA for nineteen years in the riding for Richmond, including its brief realignment as Cape Breton-Richmond, which added the Town of Port Hawkesbury and several communities in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) to the constituency’s traditional Richmond County boundaries.

During the early stages of his political career, Samson served as Environment Minister in the short-lived Liberal minority government of Russell MacLellan. More recently, following 14 years on the opposition benches, Samson took on several portfolios and duties – including Liberal House Leader and Minister of Economic and Rural Development, Energy and Tourism – after the party regained power with a majority government win in the 2013 provincial election.

Following a narrow electoral defeat in 2017 to PC candidate Alana Paon, who was subsequently ejected from the party and now sits in the legislature as an independent, Samson once again began practicing law and is now part of the Halifax-based firm Cox and Palmer.

However, in an interview with TELILE 24/7 host-producer Adam Cooke, the Petit de Grat native confirmed that he has been approached by “several people” to consider running for the soon-to-be-vacant Nova Scotia Liberal Party leadership, and added that he is seriously considering such a move.

“It’s always very humbling (to be asked to run), but I think it’s still early days,” Samson suggested.

The former Richmond MLA noted that McNeil is preparing to leave politics at a time when his personal popularity is at an all-time high, including a 70 per cent approval rating for the government and a poll-leading 47 per cent for the Liberal Party itself in the latest quarterly Narrative Research survey.

To that end, Samson suggested that the Premier’s calm yet firm demeanour during the initial lockdown stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nova Scotia may have given voters a chance to see all sides of McNeil for the first time in his seven years as premier.

“People got to see some humour, but they also saw the father figure of someone who would chastise Nova Scotians when they needed to be chastised,” Samson declared.

“And those of us who have seen that side (in government) are saying, ‘Finally, everybody else got to see what we knew all along.’”