(Charlottetown) Prince Edward Island voters on Monday gave the incumbent Progressive Conservatives a decisive majority after a campaign dominated by the health debate.
Posted at 9:35pm
Hina Alam The Canadian Press
According to all polls, Prime Minister Dennis King’s Conservatives won 22 of the province’s 27 seats, the Liberals won three and the Greens two. The Conservatives won 55.9% of the vote and Mr King was easily re-elected in his Brackley-Hunter River constituency.
The Conservatives were seeking a second term after four years marked by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, two major post-tropical storms and health-network problems.
The party’s main opponents were the Greens, led by Scottish-born dentist Peter Bevan-Baker, and the Liberals, led by former bureaucrat Sharon Cameron, who was the celebrated party leader for less than five months. She challenged Mr. Bevan-Baker in her riding and lost to him on Monday.
PHOTO BRIAN MCINNIS, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Peter Bevan-Baker, leader of the Prince Edward Island Green Party
When it was dissolved, the Conservatives held a narrow majority with 15 of the 27 seats in the legislature. The Greens had eight seats, mostly in the Charlottetown and Summerside areas. The Liberals held four seats after losing their majority to the Conservatives in 2019.
PHOTO BRIAN MCINNIS, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Sharon Cameron, leader of the Liberal Party of Prince Edward Island
The New Democrats were never a factor in the race, finishing with just 4.5% of the vote, compared to 21.6% for the Greens and 17.2% for the Liberals.
In the April 2019 vote, Prince Edward Island became the first province in Canada where the Greens formed the official opposition. The Conservatives initially won a minority government, something islanders hadn’t seen since the 19th century, but secured a slim majority after a by-election in 2020.
Despite the Green Party’s breakthrough nearly four years ago, political observers on the island felt voters seemed unwilling to see more change when the current campaign began on March 6.
The Greens nominated 25 candidates, two from the full list. The Liberals also failed by the same margin.
Opinion polls at the start and end of the four-week campaign suggested the Tories were well ahead of their rivals, including the New Democrats, who finished a distant fourth.
Green volunteers fell silent at Trailside Music Hall in Charlottetown on Monday night as results showed Green candidates fighting for their political lives.
Green Party political adviser Nate Hood said he hoped the party could retain some of its seats.
“There was a lot of talk early in the campaign about the possibility of a complete overthrow of the Progressive Conservatives,” Hood said. He added that he thinks his party has gained momentum during the election campaign and hopes to gain a solid base of support.
election promise
As the campaign began last month, King detailed the challenges his party is facing: two hurricane-force storms – Dorian in 2019 and Fiona last September – and the economic fallout of a potato mushroom that halted exports of the island’s most important crop.
Mr King, a former journalist and spokesman for former Prime Minister Pat Binns, called on voters six months ahead of the date of the province’s fixed-date election and less than two weeks after the province reached a June 10 health-care funding agreement years ago, to the polls in Ottawa worth $966 million.
According to Prince Edward Island political analyst Don Desserud, the Conservatives’ strategy was to urge voters to take note of their achievements despite the obstacles that stood in their way. He explained that it was as if Mr. King was saying in the subtext: “If we can do that in these circumstances, imagine what we can do if we don’t have to deal with these crises. »
This message seemed to work fine.
Among other things, the Conservatives have pledged to remove all islanders from the province’s waiting list for a doctor within the next two years, increase the workforce to 90,000 by 2026, and cut waiting times for building permits to a maximum of 30 days by the end of the year.
Mr Desserud said it was a solid platform. “I think when the House meets again it’s going to be a lot more aggressive in what it wants to achieve,” he said. I think they will have a much bigger vision than before.”
In a press release, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated Dennis King and the Progressive Conservative Party on their re-election. He said he looks forward to continuing his work with Prime Minister King.
“Together we will work to grow the economy, create good jobs for the middle class, improve access to quality healthcare, accelerate the fight against climate change and make life more affordable,” Trudeau said, citing $10 per day child care to go into effect nationwide by the end of the year.
With information from Michael MacDonald in Halifax and Teresa Wright in Charlottetown