(Charlottetown) Voters in Prince Edward Island delivered a decisive majority to the incumbent Progressive Conservatives on Monday after an election campaign dominated by the health care debate.
By all polls, Premier Dennis King’s Conservatives won 22 of the province’s 27 ridings, the Liberals won three seats and the Greens two. The Conservatives won 55.9% of the vote and Mr. King was easily re-elected in his constituency of Brackley-Hunter River.
The Conservatives were seeking a second term after four years marked by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, two major post-tropical storms and problems in the health network.
The party’s main opponents 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 of the party less than five months. She challenged Bevan-Baker in her riding and lost to him on Monday.
At dissolution, the Conservatives held a slight 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, having lost their majority to the Conservatives in 2019.
The New Democrats were never a factor in the race and they finished with just 4.5% of the vote, compared to 21.6% for the Greens and 17.2% for the Liberals.
Despite the Greens’ breakthrough nearly four years ago, political observers on the island felt that the electorate seemed unwilling to see more change when the current campaign began on March 6.
The Greens nominated 25 candidates, two short of the full slate. The Liberals also failed by the same margin.
Opinion polls taken at the start and end of the four-week campaign suggested the Tories were well ahead of their rivals, including the New Democrats, who were a distant fourth.
On Monday night, Green volunteers at Charlottetown’s Trailside Music Hall fell silent as the results showed Green candidates fighting for their political lives.
Greens political adviser Nate Hood said he hoped the party would be able to retain some of its seats.
“There was a lot of talk early in the campaign that there could potentially be a complete sweep for the Progressive Conservatives,” Hood said. He added that he thought his party had gained momentum during the campaign and he hoped to gain a solid base of support.
As the campaign got under way last month, King cited the challenges facing his party: two hurricane-force storms — Dorian in 2019 and Fiona last September — and the economic fallout from a potato fungus. which halted exports of the island’s most important crop.
Mr. King, a former journalist and spokesperson for former premier Pat Binns, called voters to the polls six months before the date of the province’s fixed-date election and less than two weeks after the province reached a 10-year health care funding agreement with Ottawa worth $966 million.
This message seemed to work well.
Among other things, the Conservatives have promised to get all Islanders off the provincial waiting list for a doctor within the next two years, to increase the workforce to 90,000 by 2026 and reduce 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 they will be much more aggressive about what they want to accomplish,” he said. I think they will have a much bigger vision than they had before.”
In a press release, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated Dennis King and the Progressive Conservative Party on their re-election. He said he was “looking forward” to continuing his work with Prime Minister King.
“Together, we will work to grow the economy, create good middle-class jobs, improve access to quality health care, accelerate the fight against climate change, and make life more affordable.” said Trudeau, citing $10-a-day child care that will be in effect across the province by the end of the year.