Voters in Prince Edward Island were projected to deliver a majority win to the incumbent Progressive Conservatives on Monday after an election campaign dominated by debate over heath care and housing.
An hour after polls closed, Premier Dennis King’s Tories had captured 56 per cent of the votes counted and were leading in 22 of the province’s 27 ridings. King was easily re-elected in his riding of Brackley-Hunter River.
The Liberals were ahead in three ridings and the Greens in two.
King’s first four years in office were marked by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, two major post-tropical storms and mounting health-care woes.
His party’s main challengers were the Green Party, led by Scottish-born dentist Peter Bevan-Baker, and the Liberals, led by former bureaucrat Sharon Cameron, who was acclaimed leader less than five months ago.
At dissolution, the Conservatives held a slight majority with 15 seats. The Greens had eight seats, most of them in the Charlottetown and Summerside areas. And the Liberals held four seats, having lost their majority to the Tories in 2019.
The vote in April 2019 saw P.E.I. become the first province in Canada where the Green Party formed the official Opposition.
Despite the Green breakthrough almost four years ago, political observers on the Island said the electorate did not appear to be in a mood for more change when the campaign began on March 6. And there were indications the party was not ready for an election. At one point, a former Green member of the legislature, Hannah Bell, said the party did not do enough planning or grassroots work.
The Greens nominated 25 candidates, two short of a full slate. The Liberals also fell short by the same margin.
Some observers said the Greens’ poor showing could also be attributed to inexperience. None of the Green members of the legislature had been elected in P.E.I. before 2015.
On Monday night, Green volunteers at the Trailside Music Hall in Charlottetown fell silent as early election results showed Bevan-Baker in a dead heat for his seat. Other results showed Green incumbents in a battle for their political lives.
Nate Hood, director of policy with the Greens, said he was hopeful the party would be able to hold on to some of its seats.
“There was a lot of talk at the start of the campaign that there potentially might be a clean sweep for the PCs, like 27-0, and I don’t think we’re going to see that tonight,” Hood said. “I think we’ve grown some momentum in the campaign and I think we’ll see us hold a solid base of support.”
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As the campaign started last month, King cited the challenges his party faced: two hurricane-force storms — Dorian in 2019 and Fiona last September — and the economic fallout caused by a potato fungus that halted exports of the Island’s most important crop.
A former journalist and spokesman for former premier Pat Binns, King called the election six months before the province’s fixed election date, and less than two weeks after the province landed a 10-year health-care funding deal with Ottawa worth $966 million.
As expected, health-care was the focus of a televised leaders debate on March 27, during which King was on the defensive. As he did during the previous election campaign, King responded to his opponents’ attacks by remaining optimistic and collegial.
“There are some wonderful ideas in the other three party platforms,” King said during the remarkably tame event.
Still, Bevan-Baker accused King of failing Islanders on health care. “Let’s remember who created the problems in the first place: it’s the old parties,” Bevan-Baker said.
The Liberal platform was focused on health-care, promising a seven-point plan to be implemented during the party’s first 180 days in office.
On the housing front, Bevan-Baker said poor government planning was to blame for the Island’s lack of affordable homes. In response, the Tories have promised a rent-to-own program aimed at helping people buy a house with government assistance over two years.
The Green leader also accused King of failing Islanders by not calling for a public inquiry after post-tropical storm Fiona caused widespread damage and power outages last fall. The Greens have argued that the government’s response to the storm demonstrated the Tories don’t know how to respond to climate change — the Greens’ signature issue.
—With files from Michael MacDonald in Halifax
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