Introduction
Startling revelations that foreign adversaries saw Canada a weak link in the Western alliance rippled through Ottawa after secret intelligence came to light implicating a sitting member of the House of Commons as a double agent who violated the Official Secrets Act by passing on classified information to a foreign communist power. Initially, these claims caught Official Ottawa off guard. But the claims were true, and the MP implicated ultimately faced prosecution and expulsion from the House of Commons.
Since 2015 or so, a segment of Canadian academics, the Privy Council Office in Ottawa and the various Executive Council Offices of the provinces, as well as the media, have decided to propagate a new, expansive, and mostly unfounded interpretation of the Caretaker Convention which holds that incumbent governments can do virtually nothing during an election. Prince Edward Island has joined the ranks of this movement as part of Premier King’s unscheduled but not exactly early election. He advised the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the 66th General Assembly on 6 March 2023 3 years, 11 months, and 8 days after the previous general election, instead of adhering to the fixed-date election scheduled by statute for Monday, 2 October 2023 – a date which would have forced the current assembly to last closer to four and half years instead of four.
The Government of Prince Edward Island issued a public notice the following day on 7 March 2023 in what reads like a summary from guidelines on the caretaker convention probably produced by the Executive Council Office in Charlottetown:
Even that wry grin cannot bridge the absurd incongruence of PEI’s fixed-date elections law, scheduling elections every fourth October, with the practice whereby the last three elections in 2015, 2019, and 2023 all occurred every fourth April or May.
Dennis King, Premier of Prince Edward Island and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, advised Lieutenant Governor Antoinette Perry to dissolve the 66th General Assembly on 6 March 2023, for an election on 3 April 2023.[1] King had hinted as early as December 2022 that he would seek an election in the spring instead of waiting under October 2023.[2] King all but confirmed this course in February 2023 when he declared before a party conference: “April is a time when we usually have elections on P.E.I.” and “The party is working hard on nominations to be ready so if and when we want to call an election, and need to have an election, we’re ready to go.”[3] This upcoming 67th general election marks the third consecutive general election in which the Premier has advised and obtained an early dissolution of a majority legislature[4] about six months before the date scheduled under the Island’s fixed-date elections law, yet King’s decision comes 3 years, 11 months, and 8 days – as near as makes no difference 4 years – after his predecessor announced the previous provincial general election in March 2019. King said on 6 March: “It’s four years; it’s time to have an election. There’s uncertainty in the future and Islanders should have a say in that.”[5]
James Bowden's Blog 