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The Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly

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The Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly The Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly Wayne MacKinnon Province House is perhaps best known to Canadians as the Birthplace of Canada, where the Fathers of Confederation met in 1864. A sandstone structure with Greek and Roman architectural lines, it was completed in 1847. It is now a national historic site, tourist mecca and still continues as a legislative chamber. Over the years, it has been witness to Royal visits, state funerals, countless demonstrations, protests, sit-ins, celebrations, rallies, vigils, debates, deliberations and occasional random acts of graffiti artists. This paper will examine the evolution of the legislature, the electoral system, the Island’s political culture and how it is reflected and legislative procedures and processes. he Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly, Walter Patterson, limited the number to seven because established in 1773, is the second-oldest he could not find enough suitable candidates in the Tparliament in Canada, the first having been small and struggling colony. Despite his best efforts, established in Nova Scotia in 1758. The establishment of Patterson was unable to enforce collection of quitrents. the colonial government, and its subsequent evolution, The establishment of an assembly to reflect the was the result of one of the most unusual arrangements popular will of the inhabitants was seen as a means in British colonial history. Land in the colony, then part of validating the administration’s actions, and so, on of Nova Scotia, was awarded by lottery to proprietors July 7 of 1773, the Prince Edward Island Legislative in 1767 who undertook, as part of the conditions of Assembly convened for the first time. Its first acts their grants, to settle the colony with Protestants, pay confirmed the previous proceedings enacted by the quitrents (a form of taxation) to the Crown and to fulfill Governor and Legislative Council. various other conditions. The new proprietors, many of Because of the small size and limited range of skills of whom were to not fulfill the conditions of their grants, the colony’s residents, the number of members of the new petitioned the Crown for the establishment of a separate assembly was limited to eighteen. They were elected at-large government free from the influences of Nova Scotia. In by male, Protestant residents over the age of 21. Folklore return, the proprietors agreed to defray the expenses has it that the first assembly met in a Charlottetown tavern. of the new colonial government. Prince Edward Island Surveying the elected members, the sergeant-at-arms is thus became a separate colony in 1769. The subsequent reported as observing, “This is a damned queer parliament.” conflicts between absentee proprietors and tenants, He was fined for the outburst.1 known as the “Land Question,” dominated Island politics for more than a century. In the small confines of Island politics, personal rivalries emerged; disputes occurred among the At first, administration of the new colony was limited various factions of the population; there were ongoing to the Governor, an appointed Legislative Council and disagreements and disputes with the Colonial Office; a Supreme Court. Although provision was made for a enforcing the conditions imposed upon the proprietors twelve member Legislative Council, the first Governor, was proving difficult, if not impossible; corruption was widespread; and the progress of the colony was constrained. Less than 15 years after Prince Edward Island was made a separate colony, it was once again Wayne Mackinnon teaches in the Department of Political Science placed under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Nova at the University of Prince Edward Island. This is a revised version of a paper prepared in 2010 for the Canadian Study of Parliament Scotia. The rank of the Prince Edward Island Governor Group’s project on provincial and territorial legislatures. was reduced to that of Lieutenant-Governor. In a letter 8 CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW/SUMMER 2011 from the Colonial Office to Patterson, it was noted that, and the complicity and intimidation of their local “The Civil Establishment still continues a Burthen agents who dominated the government of the colony upon this country.”2 and the political life of the day. Then as now, the governmental structures in The Legislative Assembly achieved only minor Prince Edward Island demonstrate the operation of progress in its efforts to be recognized. In 1839, the elaborate constitutional provisions in a small province. Executive Council and Legislative Councils were Although the tiny colony had all the trappings of separated. The Legislative Assembly was given three a full-fledged Westminster model, the Legislative seats on the Executive Council, although the members Assembly struggled to achieve an effective position were appointed by the Governor without the approval and recognition of its parliamentary privileges. The of the assembly. Eventually, the movement towards political system was dominated by the appointed responsible government joined with the demands for Executive Council and Legislative Council, largely land and other reforms. The achievement of responsible consisting of the same people. Successive Governors government in Nova Scotia, led by reformers such as would routinely dissolve the Legislative Assembly Joseph Howe, and the agitations in Upper and Lower in efforts to achieve a more compliant membership. Canada, made similar demands in Prince Edward Island In some cases, Governors even refused to summon inevitable. The view of the Colonial Office, however, members for regular sessions. Members were relatively was that Prince Edward Island was yet too small and poor, uneducated and disorganized. The attitudes of backward to be entitled to responsible government. the ruling cliques were expressed by one Governor In 1850, the Liberal Reform party, led by George who extolled the virtues of members of the two Coles, won 18 of the 24 assembly seats, and made ruling councils, “men of Education, experience in the responsible government its main objective. Despite world” whose duty it was to, “oppose the overbearing the continued opposition of the Governor, and the dominion of ignorance” found in the assembly.3 He controversy the demand generated in the colony, the blocked every attempt to grant more powers to the Liberals refused to back down. Leading members of Assembly where, he said, “there neither is, nor do I the party were offered seats on the Executive Council, think there can be for a long time yet, any sufficient but they rejected the invitation. In the 1851 session, the intelligence to govern at all.” His view of the electorate legislature virtually went “on strike”, passing a vote was equally dismissive, saying that Islanders, “are very of want of confidence in the government and refusing carefully taught that only a ‘backwoodsman’ knows to vote supply. A petition previously tabled in the how to legislate for a ‘backwoodsman’.”4 According to assembly stated that it would refuse to cooperate, “until Frank MacKinnon, the Legislative Assembly, “found the Government of this Island shall be remodeled, so itself tolerated when needed and its power confined as to enjoy the confidence of the people.” by the other branches.”5 The impasse was eventually resolved when the With some progress gradually being made in the Governor invited Coles to form a government which settlement of the colony, the number of members in had the confidence of the Legislative Assembly. On the Legislative Assembly was increased to 24 in 1839. April 23, 1851 the Liberals under Coles were appointed At the same time, the single, colony-wide constituency as members of the Executive Council, finally achieving was replaced by four dual-member constituencies in the goal of responsible government. It was perhaps the each of the three counties. (That number would be finest hour experienced in the Legislative Assembly, increased again in 1856 to 30 members elected from before or since. “This was one of the boldest strokes five dual-member constituencies in each county.) ever attempted in colonial politics,” it was noted, “but Various reform movements were led in the in light of all the circumstances it seems to have been Legislative Assembly, although political parties almost inevitable.”6 were slow to coalesce. One of the more successful Responsible government, however, would not movements was the Escheat Party which captured be the panacea for the colony’s troubled political a majority of seats in the assembly in the 1830s. It life. Religious, class and group rivalries, along with sought to have the estates of the proprietors who had partisan and personality differences, led to shifting not fulfilled the original conditions of their grants and temporary coalitions. The result was political returned to the Crown for redistribution to the tenants. instability: between 1851, when the colony achieved Like many other reform and protest movements in the responsible government, and 1873, when Prince Edward early years, it was frustrated by what was called the Island joined Confederation, there were no less than “backstairs influence” of the proprietors in London 12 different governments. Debates over the Island’s CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW/SUMMER 2011 9 entry to Confederation, continued efforts to resolve the pronounced. In one rural Kings County riding, there land question and political machinations related to the were fewer than 2,000 voters. Meanwhile, in one of the building of the Prince Edward Island
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