In December, I chronicled the corrupt bargain between Justin Trudeau and Dennis King whereby King resigned abruptly as both leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and Premier of Prince Edward Island on 21 February 2025 so that Trudeau could name him Canada’s ambassador to Ireland one week later, on 27 February 2025.[1] This kicked off a farcical succession crisis in the birthplace of Confederation which only ended this week, after nearly one year. Continue reading
Bowden, J.W.J. “The Greater Son of a Lesser Sire: The Executive Authority of the Crown of Canada versus the Crown of the United Kingdom.” Chapter 2 in Executive Power and The Royal Prerogative in the Commonwealth, edited by Samuel White and Matthew Stubbs, 9-31. University of Adelaide Press, 2025.
Introduction
Dennis King became Premier of Prince Edward Island on 9 May 2019 as the head of the first single-party minority government in the Island’s history.[1] Little did he know then that his tenure as head of government would coincide with some the greatest calamities and disruptions in a century. He abruptly declared on 20 February 2025 that he would resign as both leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and Premier of Prince Edward Island the following day. He said in his official press release that his six years as premier “felt like a lifetime” and noted the “global pandemic, two hurricanes, cyber-attacks, trade wars, and so much more” that he weathered during his tenure; quite understandably, he sounded like he was suffering from what we used to call nervous exhaustion.[2] Less understandable, however, remains his decision not merely to announce his resignation as premier to take effect within a few weeks or months after the Progressive Conservative Party had elected a new leader but instead with near-immediate effect and on only one day’s notice, which set off a chain reaction that continues to produce strange outcomes in December 2025. Continue reading
Peter C. Newman seems to have originated a famous meme of Canadian politics by quoting Jack Pickersgill, a former Clerk of the Privy Council, Liberal cabinet minister, historian, and literary executor of William Lyon Mackenzie King’s estate. In 1968, Newman quoted Pickersgill as having referred to the Liberal Party of Canada as “The Government Party.”[1] But by 2010 and 2011 in his later books, Newman quoted Pickersgill as having called the Liberals as “the natural government party” (Newman’s emphasis),[2] and Canadian politicos since at least 1991 have often referred to the Liberals by a slightly different variant, as “the natural governing party” (my emphasis).[3]
Ontario recently repealed its fixed-date election law and abolished pre-writ spending limits. Instead of putting those amendments to the Election Act in an omnibus budget implementation bill, they should have formed part of an electoral bill that would also allow Ontario to readjust the boundaries of provincial electoral districts regularly, as every other province has already done. Ideally, Ontario would simply readjust its provincial electoral boundaries by way of an independent commission every eight to ten years like every other province. But no other province boasts so many federal electoral districts as Ontario’s 122, and no provincial elected assembly has more than 125 members. Every other province is represented by significantly fewer MPs in Ottawa than MLAs (or MNAs or MHAs) in their provincial capitals: 7 vs 40 in Newfoundland & Labrador, 4 vs 27 in Prince Edward Island, 11 vs 55 in Nova Scotia, 10 vs 49 in New Brunswick, 78 vs 125 in Quebec, 14 vs 57 in Manitoba, 14 vs 61 in Saskatchewan, 37 vs 87 in Alberta, and 43 vs 93 in British Columbia. It therefore stands to reason that Ontario should take advantage of this unique convergence to save money and double up most of its federal electoral districts as its provincial electoral districts. But Northern Ontario for practical purposes does need more than nine northern ridings within its provincial assembly; thankfully, the provincial parliament alone determines the ideal number of ridings and people per elected representative irrespective of any inter-provincial or federal considerations under the province’s constitution.
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