Collaboration 'clearly gone' as MLAs wrap up acrimonious P.E.I. Legislature sitting

The spring sitting of the P.E.I. Legislature came to a close on the five-year anniversary of the 2019 election that made Dennis King's Progressive Conservatives the first functional minority government in the province's history.

"Collaboration" became the buzzword in those minority days, especially between the PCs and the Green Party, encapsulated in an image of the two party leaders hugging the day after the election.

If the 2024 spring sitting showed us anything, it's that the days of collaboration are definitely over, and there aren't likely to be any more hugs.

"We've seen a change in tone … and a different attitude toward the entire process," said UPEI political scientist Don Desserud, describing how the King government conducted business during the sitting.

Desserud described it as "a return to the way things used to be before," and not in a good way.

"The early days of cooperation that we saw going back to 2019 are clearly gone."

As the sitting was winding down, both opposition parties were left expressing frustration that bills they brought forward were not given a fair shake by the governing PCs, who've had a majority government since a byelection win in Nov. 2020.

Liberal MLA Robert Henderson decried it as a "cowardly approach" for Agriculture Minister Bloyce Thompson to shoot down Henderson's bill to establish a right for Island farmers to be provided service manuals from the dealerships that sell them equipment. 

Thompson had been invited to appear before the standing committee that developed the bill but declined, sending a written critique from his department instead.

And the Green Party was left crying foul after King engaged in verbal sparring with the emergency room doctor the Greens brought forward to champion their bill which would have eliminated language from the Employment Standards Act allowing employers to require employees who miss three days because of sickness to provide a doctor's note.

In both cases there was no effort by government to collaborate with opposition parties to look for a middle ground; the entire PC caucus voted them both down.

It's not unusual for opposition bills to be voted down by government. Until 2019, it was the norm.

Desserud says it's "disappointing" that spirit of cooperation seems to be gone, because he says it changed the tone all parties brought to the house.

From this point, he predicts the opposition parties will take a firmer approach to opposing the PCs, "and that's going to make for a more volatile and acrimonious assembly."