Malpeque

Malpeque spans the full width of central Prince Edward Island, running from the red-sand beaches of the North Shore to the Northumberland Strait coastline in the south. The riding takes in the commuter town of Cornwall, the service centre of Kensington, and the tourist villages of North Rustico and Cavendish, as well as the P.E.I. gateway at Borden-Carleton, where the Confederation Bridge connects the Island to New Brunswick. Named for the bay celebrated for its oysters, Malpeque is a riding of rolling farmland, small towns, and a rapidly growing suburban fringe.

The riding has been held by the Liberals for more than thirty years and has experienced significant population growth, particularly around Cornwall and the communities within commuting distance of Charlottetown.

Candidates

Heath MacDonald (Liberal) has represented Malpeque since winning the seat in 2021. A resident of Cornwall, MacDonald previously served as a provincial MLA for Cornwall-Meadowbank from 2015 to 2021, holding cabinet portfolios including Economic Development and Tourism and Finance. Before entering politics he worked as a tourism operator and as executive director of Quality Tourism Services.

Jamie Fox (Conservative) served as a Progressive Conservative MLA for Borden-Kinkora from 2015 until his resignation in late 2023 to pursue federal politics, making him the first declared Conservative candidate in Atlantic Canada for the 2025 cycle. He was interim leader of the P.E.I. Progressive Conservatives from 2015 to 2017 and later became fisheries and communities minister in Premier Dennis King's government. Fox had been canvassing in the riding for roughly sixteen months before election day.

Anna Keenan (Green Party) holds degrees in physics and economics and has fifteen years of international experience in climate action and democracy advocacy, including work as a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace International in Europe. She ran for the Greens in Malpeque in 2019 and 2021, and was a candidate for the federal Green Party leadership in 2022, finishing second to Elizabeth May. Keenan has served as the party's Democratic Institutions Critic.

Cassie MacKay (NDP) grew up in Malpeque and studied at Athabasca University, where she served on the student union council and chaired committees. She previously founded a social media business and has worked as a substitute teacher. MacKay focused her first federal campaign on improving health care access on P.E.I.

Hilda Baughan (People's Party) is a retired medical transcriptionist and former transit operator who has been involved with the People's Party of Canada since its founding. She campaigned on pausing immigration to allow housing supply and employment to catch up with population growth.

About the Riding

Malpeque's economy rests on a mix of agriculture, tourism, and the service sector. Potato farming and dairy operations dominate the interior, while the North Shore beaches around Cavendish and North Rustico draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each summer to Prince Edward Island National Park and the Anne of Green Gables heritage sites. Malpeque Bay itself remains one of the most prized oyster-producing waters in North America.

The Confederation Bridge at Borden-Carleton is the riding's most strategically significant piece of infrastructure. Toll reduction or elimination became one of the defining issues of the 2025 campaign across all four P.E.I. ridings, but the question held particular resonance in Malpeque, where the bridge is a daily reality for commuters, truckers, and tourism operators. Both the Liberal and Conservative parties pledged to lower bridge tolls during the campaign.

Balancing housing development with the protection of agricultural land emerged as another key issue. The corridor between Cornwall and Charlottetown has seen rapid suburban expansion, raising concerns about the conversion of prime farmland to residential subdivisions. Candidates debated whether federally funded housing investments should prioritize higher-density development in existing town centres rather than greenfield sprawl over productive agricultural land. Health care access, including family physician shortages and the sustainability of rural health services, rounded out the local issues that shaped the 2025 campaign in Malpeque.