Wade MacLauchlan

Stanhope is the oldest Scottish community on PEI, with the first Scottish settlers arriving on the ship "Falmouth" in June 1770.

The MacLauchlan's were early residents of Stanhope, with a large extended family in Stanhope and numerous other rural PEI communities.

MacLauchlan was born into an entrepreneurial household.

The family lived initially in an apartment above a country general store that his father Harry started at Stanhope in 1946 at the age of nineteen.

H. Wade MacLauchlan (born 10 December 1954), is a Canadian legal academic, university administrator, politician and community leader.

MacLauchlan was born on 10 December 1954, the third of five children of Harry and Marjorie MacLauchlan, living in Stanhope, Prince Edward Island.

Harry and Marjorie MacLauchlan were businesspeople involved in tourism, fisheries, heavy construction, and several other ventures through the 1960s.

By the age of 10, Wade had two newspaper routes along with his cousin, selling The Guardian in the morning and The Evening Patriot in the afternoon.

He would later recall that the only advice offered by his father regarding what was a fairly sizeable business venture for two youngsters was that they should read the newspaper before selling it; "In other words, the most important thing in business is to know what you're talking about."

MacLauchlan's parents went on to other ventures including MacLauchlan's Motel in Charlottetown, expanding the heavy construction business and getting in to cable television, golf courses, oil and gas distribution, and real estate.

MacLauchlan worked in many of those ventures with jobs such as weighing and salting fish, collecting garbage, building golf course greens, and carrying suitcases.

A key formative experience came when MacLauchlan was nominated by his high school teachers to serve as a page in the PEI provincial legislature for two years in 1970 and 1971 at the height of the Comprehensive Development Plan and Alex Campbell's premiership.

MacLauchlan went on to earn an undergraduate Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Prince Edward Island, followed by a Bachelor of Laws from the University of New Brunswick and a Master of Laws from Yale University.

While at UPEI, he served two terms as an elected student representative on University Senate.

In the summer of 1974, at the age of 19, he headed further afield, working as a guide on cross-Canada bus tours.

After completing his first eight years of education, MacLauchlan went from the two-room school at Stanhope to study at Charlottetown Rural High.

Along with his studies, MacLauchlan was involved in student politics as vice-president of Student Council and chair of the organizing committee for the annual Winter Carnival.

Upon graduating in 1976, MacLauchlan was awarded the Owen MacDonald Memorial Award, presented to a graduate by the senior class for excellence and outstanding contribution to the class.

At UNB Law School, MacLauchlan held the Beaverbrook Scholarship in Law, was elected to serve for two terms on Law Faculty Council and was awarded the Lieutenant Governor's Medal on graduation.

MacLauchlan attended Yale Law School with the O'Brien Scholarship and Yale Law Scholarship.

Following graduation from UPEI, MacLauchlan took a double gap year, working and traveling widely from 1976 to 1978.

He worked as road construction labourer in Northern Quebec, as a hotel clerk at Jasper Park Lodge, as a roughneck on an oil rig in west-central Alberta, and as a volunteer recycler in southern France.

In the year following graduation from UNB Law, MacLauchlan was awarded a clerkship at the Supreme Court of Canada, where he was the sole law clerk for Justice W.Z. Estey.

1981–82 was an active year for the Supreme Court, beginning with the delivery in late September of opinions in the famous Patriation Reference. The Court's decision led to first ministers meetings that in turn paved the way for patriation of the Canadian constitution, adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982, and enshrinement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

MacLauchlan began his teaching and academic career as an assistant professor, later promoted to associate professor, at Dalhousie Law School from 1983 to 1991.

During this time, he served for six years as director of the federal government's Civil Law-Common Law Exchange Program.

MacLauchlan was active in the Canadian Association of Law Teachers, including as chair of a Special Advisory Committee on Equality in Legal Education, which produced the report Equality in Legal Education: Sharing a Vision, Creating the Pathways.

His main teaching and scholarly focus was in administrative and public law.

From 1990 to 1993, he was the administrative law editor of the Supreme Court Law Review.

MacLauchlan was Dean of Law at the University of New Brunswick from 1991 to 1996.

As dean, he led the establishment of the $1.5 million Heritage Fund on the occasion of the law school's centenary in 1991–92.

During this period, UNB's law faculty became known as "Canada's great small law school," a title it retains today.

In 1993–94, MacLauchlan was chair of the university-wide faculty-staff component of UNB's Venture Campaign, launching what became a successful $40 million initiative.

From 1997 to 1999, MacLauchlan served as founding director of UNB's multi-disciplinary Centre for Property Studies.

He served as the fifth president of the University of Prince Edward Island from 1999 to 2011, becoming president emeritus in 2012.

In 1999, MacLauchlan was appointed as the fifth president of the University of Prince Edward Island, the first PEI native to serve in the role.

At the time of his appointment, MacLauchlan said, "We can be as great as any university in this country. We may not be as big, but we can be as good."

He served as the 32nd premier of Prince Edward Island from 2015 to 2019.

His government was defeated in the April 23, 2019 general election.

MacLauchlan announced his intention to step down as Liberal leader on 26 April 2019, and completed his term as Premier on 9 May 2019.