Premier Dennis King dissolved the Prince Edward Island legislature on March 6, 2023, triggering a 28-day campaign with voting day set for April 3. King had governed with a minority since 2019 — the Island's first minority government since the early 1890s — and had navigated the province through the COVID-19 pandemic and the devastation of post-tropical storm Fiona in September 2022, which caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage across the Island. The election was fought across 27 districts, the same boundaries used in 2019. Turnout fell to 68.5%, the lowest recorded in Prince Edward Island since 1966 and a sharp drop from the 76.3% of 2019.

Results

The PCs won a commanding majority with 22 of 27 seats and 55.9% of the popular vote — the party's best result since Pat Binns won 26 seats in 2000. The Liberals became the Official Opposition with 3 seats on 17.2% of the vote, while the Green Party collapsed from 8 seats to just 2 on 21.6%, losing their Official Opposition status despite outpolling the Liberals by over four points. The NDP were shut out with 4.5%.

The Green implosion was the election's central story. After their historic 2019 breakthrough as the first Green Official Opposition in Canadian history, the party lost six of its eight seats. Several losses were agonizingly close: Mermaid-Stratford fell by just 38 votes, Tyne Valley-Sherbrooke by 362, and Summerside-Wilmot by 670. The PCs swept every rural district and most urban ones, losing only Peter Bevan-Baker's New Haven-Rocky Point and Karla Bernard's Charlottetown-Victoria Park to the Greens. The Liberals won Charlottetown-West Royalty, O'Leary-Inverness, and Tignish-Palmer Road.

Party Leaders

Dennis King (PC) converted his 2019 minority into a decisive majority by running on his government's steady management through crisis. Born November 1, 1971, in Georgetown, Prince Edward Island, King grew up in a small-town Island family and studied journalism at Holland College before building a career in communications and public affairs. He worked as a political aide, journalist, and communications consultant before winning the PC leadership on February 9, 2019, inheriting a party that had been reduced to a rump of 8 seats. Just seven weeks later he led the PCs to a minority victory that stunned the province. As premier, his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic — including the Atlantic Bubble — and his government's response to Hurricane Fiona earned broad public approval. He was re-elected in Brackley-Hunter River with 68.2% of the vote. His 2023 platform emphasized infrastructure investment, a new mental health campus, and continuing health-care recruitment.

Sharon Cameron (Liberal) led a party still recovering from its 2019 collapse. Acclaimed as leader on November 19, 2022, Cameron was a businesswoman and community leader without previous electoral experience. She chose to run in New Haven-Rocky Point — the seat held by Green leader Peter Bevan-Baker — but finished third, failing to win a seat. The Liberals won three seats — Charlottetown-West Royalty, O'Leary-Inverness, and Tignish-Palmer Road — and claimed Official Opposition status over the Greens by virtue of having one more seat despite far fewer votes. Cameron resigned as leader on April 6, 2023, just three days after the election.

Peter Bevan-Baker (Green) fought to defend the party's historic gains from four years earlier. Born June 3, 1962, in Aberdeen, Scotland, Bevan-Baker grew up in the fishing village of Fortrose in the Scottish Highlands before emigrating to Canada in 1985. He lived in Newfoundland and Ontario before settling in Hampton, Prince Edward Island, around 2003, where he established a dental practice. He became Green Party leader in 2012 and won his first seat in Kellys Cross-Cumberland in 2015, making him the Island's first-ever Green MLA. In 2019 he led the party to its breakthrough eight seats as Official Opposition. The 2023 campaign proved far more difficult — the party's support eroded across rural Prince Edward Island, and Bevan-Baker himself barely held New Haven-Rocky Point by 106 votes over the PC candidate. He announced his resignation as leader in June 2023.

Campaign Issues

Health care dominated the campaign, continuing a theme that had consumed Island politics for years. Emergency room closures, ambulance shortages, and the nearly 29,000 Islanders on the patient registry without a family doctor drove voter frustration. King pointed to his government's recruitment efforts, including over 80 new physicians hired since 2019, while the opposition parties attacked the pace of reform.

Housing affordability emerged as a close second, with rental costs in Charlottetown having risen sharply since 2019. The Greens campaigned on rent control and social housing construction, while King promised market-based supply solutions and infrastructure to support growth.

Hurricane Fiona's aftermath shaped the campaign's tone. The storm had devastated PEI in September 2022, knocking out power to roughly 95% of the province, destroying fishing infrastructure, uprooting forests, and leaving communities without electricity for weeks. King's response to Fiona was widely seen as competent, and the crisis reinforced his steady-hand-in-a-storm brand.

Notable Outcomes

The Green collapse reshaped Island politics. The party's drop from 8 seats to 2 demonstrated the fragility of their 2019 breakthrough, which had been built on narrow margins in many ridings. The razor-thin 38-vote loss in Mermaid-Stratford — where Green incumbent Michele Beaton fell to PC challenger Jenn Redmond — underscored how close the Greens came to retaining a larger presence.

The Liberals' claim to Official Opposition status with just 3 seats — despite finishing third in popular vote behind the Greens at 17.2% versus 21.6% — illustrated a quirk of first-past-the-post. The Greens' support was spread more evenly across the province, while the Liberals won their three seats with concentrated margins.

King's 22-seat majority was the most dominant PC performance in over two decades, reflecting both personal popularity and a province-wide desire for stability after the twin crises of COVID-19 and Hurricane Fiona. The result also confirmed Prince Edward Island's return to its traditional two-party pattern, with the Green surge of 2019 appearing increasingly like a one-election phenomenon.