Darrell Dexter: The Incrementalist

But even the broadest appeal in the world might be hard-pressed were it not for true political savvy. Just as Obama understood and leveraged the power of social media to amass political power, Dexter’s spring campaign was a social media leader; for example, surfers who Googled Tory leader Rodney MacDonald or Grit Stephen McNeil during the election were automatically routed to the NDP homepage. And just as Obama’s historic win galvanized a nation – if not the world, for a brief moment in time – Dexter’s victory injected Nova Scotia’s fetid political scene with a breath of fresh air. “Who would believe that NDP orange would cover Nova Scotia?” Dexter mused in his victory speech, his normally devout expression erased, at last, by an elated grin. Bored, exhausted and disenchanted by politics as usual, scores of Nova Scotians who had never considered voting NDP decided to give the rumpled, diligent, hard-working lawyer from Cole Harbour a chance. It was hard not to feel happy for him. He had spent 10 years sweating on the Opposition benches, eight of them as party leader, for this day.

We have never had a premier come into the office who was as prepared for the job as Darrell is.” Alexa McDonough, former leader of the federal NDP and current acting president of Mount Saint Vincent University, first met Dexter when he worked on her 1979 federal election campaign. She was immediately struck by his eagerness to learn. “He is a perpetual researcher… he’s a student of history, of politics, a student of life.” In Dexter’s case, “student of life” can be construed as a euphemism for a young adulthood spent pursuing a number of different career avenues. When he first entered university, he was a reluctant student, scraping through his first year at the University of Kings College with four credits. That summer, he landed a union job at a Teleglobe telecommunications facility and figured he’d trade university for high-paying work. But a late-summer conversation with a supervisor who had worked the same ditch-digging job for two decades prompted Dexter to change his mind. He headed back to school, where he became involved in student politics. It was here that he met his future chief of staff, Dan O’Connor, who was also the chief strategist in Dexter’s victorious spring campaign. Dexter cobbled together a BA in Education, but jobs were scarce for teachers at the time, so he re-enrolled at King’s, this time in the new one-year Bachelor of Journalism course. Following his training in journalism, Dexter went to work for the navy, as an information officer. He got some experience, met his wife, Kelly Wilson, and persuaded her to move with him to Nova Scotia, where he was about to embark on yet another degree – this time a Bachelor of Laws.

In recent interviews, Dexter has argued that his initial meanderings were in fact formative and enlightening. Working different jobs and gaining various degrees showed him the value of feeding his curiosity, and gave him a breadth of knowledge he draws from to this day. “He inspires confidence because he has a deep knowledge and life experience,” reflects McDonough. And though he may have fooled around in school, friends say Dexter has the memory of an elephant, and plenty of curiosity to boot. Robert Chisholm, the former leader of the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party, met Dexter in 1991 during his successful by-election in Halifax-Atlantic. Like McDonough, Chisholm found Dexter’s energy and curiosity to be formidable. But what made him invaluable was his grasp of the issues. “He had more political knowledge in his little finger than I ever had,” says Chisholm.

Over the years, Dexter’s political experience has refined and sharpened his early instincts. As a Dartmouth lawyer, he served on various boards and as president of the Dartmouth Merchants’ Association. He became a Dartmouth city councillor in 1994, and was elected MLA for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour in 1998. He assumed leadership of the party in 2001. The grueling schedule of political life, and its unending demand for comment, context and opinion suited Dexter. He threw himself into his career as a politician, embracing the long hours, mastering “the issues” and tirelessly spreading his message of good government and a better deal for families.