P.E.I. election result revives talk of proportional representation

This week's election on Prince Edward Island is one more example of how the current first-past-the-post electoral system needs to change, say advocates for proportional representation.

"The legislature will not reflect the way that Islanders voted," said Leo Cheverie of Islanders for Proportional Representation.

"First past the post… delivers 100 per cent of the power, in a lot of cases, to people who have less than 100 per cent of the vote."

Proportional representation has been on the minds of many Islanders on and off since the turn of the century. Proponents argue that a PR system, which would grant seats to parties in the legislature based on their share of the popular vote, instead of one seat for each district won, is more democratic.

For example, in this week's election, the Progressive Conservatives won 22 of 27 districts, or 81 per cent of the legislature's 27 seats, with 56 per cent of the popular vote.

The Greens were relegated to third-party status with two seats, through they attracted 21.6 per cent of the vote. The Liberals are the Official Opposition with three seats, despite getting fewer votes than the Greens and only 17.2 per cent of votes cast.

"That shows the inequities of the first-past-the-post system," said political scientist Don Desserud.

"It exaggerates the goods and it exaggerates the bads. The parties in opposition, they may want to take some solace in the fact that this is an exaggerated deflation [of seats], where the PCs have an exaggerated inflation of seats."

'Reflecting citizen values'

Former federal Green candidate Anna Keenan, commenting during election-night coverage on CBC Prince Edward Island, noted that under a PR election system, the Progressive Conservatives would still have won a majority, but three other parties would have representation in the legislature as well.

"That's what the result would have been if it was to more accurately reflect the diversity of opinion of Island voters," said Keenan.

"It's not a partisan interest. It's about reflecting citizen values, and the voice of all the people, not just the people who vote for the most popular party."

Recent talk of proportional representation began after the last big Progressive Conservative victory on the Island, when Pat Binns won 26 of the legislature's 27 seats with 58 per cent of the vote in 2000.

That led to a 2005 plebiscite in which 63.58 per cent of Islanders who voted said no to a Mixed Member Proportional electoral system, while 36.42 per cent voted yes.

'We've been through the exercise'

Former Liberal MLA Jordan Brown, sitting on the same CBC panel as Keenan on election night, chaired the legislative committee that took another look at proportional representation in 2015.

That process led to another plebiscite in 2016 with three choices voters could rank. The non-binding results favoured a change, but then-premier Wade MacLauchlan emphasized the low voter turnout. Ultimately Islanders voted to stick with a first-past-the-post system, in a 2019 referendum.

This week, Brown questioned whether it was a good idea to bring up the subject again.

"It was an issue that was divisive and people had strong feelings over," he said.

"We've been through the exercise now fairly frequently in the last 20 or 25 years on Prince Edward Island. You do have to kind of ask the question as to how often you can go back to that well."

Cheverie argues that record-low voter turnout for this election suggests some change is required.

"Engagement is really important. We also want to make sure there is less cynicism and less disappointment in our system," he said.

The P.E.I. legislature did pass a motion in 2021 to create a citizens' assembly to explore introducing proportional representation on the Island. Premier Dennis King said at the time that he would take the result of the vote seriously, but there has not been any movement on the issue since then.