CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Progressive Conservative leader Dennis King has earned the confidence of P.E.I. Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry after stressing his desire to improve cross-party collaboration within P.E.I.’s legislature.
In an interview with The Guardian on Wednesday, King said this collaboration could involve naming a cabinet that includes MLAs from other political parties and formulating a collaborative speech from the throne and first budget, in consultation with Liberal and Green MLAs.
"We talked a lot about the tone we set during the campaign, with the collaboration and the desire to collaborate, our necessity to do so in a minority government," King said of his meeting with Perry.
During their meeting, which took place Tuesday morning, King said Perry advised him to respect the will of the people.
In a media statement, Perry said she believed Islanders wished for King and the PCs to be given the chance to govern.
“He assured me with sincerity that he will be able to command the confidence of the legislature,” Perry said of King.
“Islanders can rest assured knowing their best interests are represented.”
King said his conversation with Perry did not delve into the specifics of how such a collaboration would work.
The PCs, under King’s leadership, won the highest number of seats in last Tuesday’s provincial election but are still shy of a majority. The PCs won 12 seats, while the Greens won eight and the Liberals won six. A byelection is due to take place in one remaining district.
King said he is hoping to swear in his new government and cabinet as early as May 9, the day Elections P.E.I. will officially confirm the results of the April 23 election.
After that, King said he plans to call together a spring sitting of the legislature in early June. The session will include a speech from the throne and a provincial budget. Both would be bills of confidence, meaning that the PCs could lose the chance to govern if they do not pass.
“I'm very prepared to give both parties greater involvement in the preparation of both of those than we've probably seen in many recent years," King said.
King said he believes a collaborative approach could curtail the tendency of Opposition parties to oppose these bills.
"I would probably want to go ask the other parties to give me their top three or four priorities that they want to see outlined in the speech from the throne."
King also said a budget was largely completed by the previous Liberal government. He said this would form the basis of his government’s first budget.
He also suggested that Liberal MLAs would likely vote for this budget.
“With six members of the former government now having been sitting around the table toward the formulation of that document, I would expect that it would be accepted and passed after debate in the legislature," King said.
King said he has met with both other parties since last Tuesday. He said he was looking into the possibility of having MLAs from other parties join his cabinet.
“We think Islanders would be open to such a concept, but we don't know about the dynamics of how it would work – cabinet confidences, etc. – all of these things," King said.
Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker said he welcomed the suggestion of a collaborative process involving both the speech from the throne and the budget.
But he said he believed the suggestion of involving members of his caucus in cabinet was still murky.
"I'm still not sure what model Dennis has in mind and I'm not sure how it would work," Bevan-Baker said.
Bevan-Baker said cabinet members are expected to publicly defend decisions made in cabinet. This could prove difficult for members of other parties, such as the Greens, who are not part of the PC caucus.
"There's some twisty things there that need to be figured out," Bevan-Baker said.
“I think we’re a long way from figuring that out at this point.”
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