PEI Election April 23 2019

The url below shows all candidates chosen so far and a map of each riding.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-district-nominat...

The Lennox Island Reserve in PEI has already suffered greatly from sea level rise. Large parts of Lennox Island  have already been permanently flooded, which will lead to the community having to move.

The community of Lennox Island, Canada will require relocation due to climate change-induced erosion and sea-level rise. The Canadian government is not yet prepared for climate migration events. There are varying social and economic challenges to community relocations. For this reason, it can be useful to learn from past forced relocation events within Canada and climate migrations abroad. This study uses the precedent of Newtok, Alaska’s climate migration to determine measures that should be used during Lennox Island’s climate migration. 

Lennox Island is expected to be one of the first Canadian communities requiring relocation due to climate change. Situated on the northwest coast of Prince Edward Island, Canada, Lennox Island is located in the Malpeque Bay. The Malpeque Bay is enclosed by a chain of sandy islands that act as a barrier protecting Lennox Island from the strong Gulf of St. Lawrence tides (Lewis & Peters, 2017). Lennox Island is reserve land that the Lennox Island First Nation call home. ...

Saltwater intrusion poses an infiltration threat to the groundwater of Lennox Island (Charles et al. 2012). Other environmental threats include sea-level rise, erosion and storm intensification (ParCa, 2016). These threats are decreasing the long-term viability of the island’s infrastructure, such as the causeway and sewage lagoon (CBC, 2015). Erosion is causing the islands coastline to recede, which is gradually encroaching inland towards the islands historic church, residential housing, traditional pow wow grounds, cemetery and archaeological sites (Majeed, 2015). ...

A 1-metre sea-level rise (Hedley, 2014), or a major storm surge (CBC, 2015) is capable of breaking down the islands’ multi-million-dollar sewage lagoon (INAC, 2011). This breakdown would result in the contamination of the Malpeque Bay and the groundwater of Lennox Island. This degree of sea-level and storm intensity could render the causeway unusable due to flooding or infrastructural damages. This provides a safety concern for the residents. The community has emergency plans in place in the event the causeway is damaged. However, the last time the causeway was damaged, it took nearly six months to repair (CBC, 2015). With the combination of sea-level rise and soil erosion anticipated to continue (Majeed, 2015), the emergency plans to protect the causeway and sewage lagoon, are only temporary. The island is already pursuing development on reserve land, on the mainland of P.E.I, in nearby East Bideford (Fraser, 2016). Residents themselves are increasingly acknowledging relocation as the only long term solution. With these gradual environmental threats, Lennox Island is anticipated to be one of the first Canadian communities requiring relocation due to climate change (Beaumont, 2016; Fraser, 2016). 

https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/73876/HBROOKS_Hon...

A house on Lennox Island off Canada’s Atlantic coast sits so close to the shoreline that its occupant, Dave Haley, worries that storms and erosion will sweep it out to sea. During a severe storm five years ago, the water lapped at his door. “Today our high tides have become almost like a storm tide. The water is higher, our low tides have become like our regular high tides, so things have changed,” he says.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/small-east-coast-island-lo...

The PEI NDP have announced a $15 minimum wage that would rise to $17 within four years and a basic income guarantee as part of their platform. According to the CBC "Byrne said a $15 minimum wage would be a priority for his party, and it is something he said he would implement right away. The party would also advocate for the minimum wage to rise to $17 within four years. " (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-votes-ndp-15-wag...)

However, the article below says the minimum wage proposal says this would rise to $15 at the end of four years.

Island NDP Leader Joe Byrne believes the entire province would benefit if the working poor were earning more money.

Byrne announced Friday a commitment, if his party were elected to govern, to raise minimum wage in the province to $15 per hour within a four-year term in what he termed his first major announcement a few days into the provincial election campaign. P.E.I.'s minimum wage rises from $11.55 to $12.25 an hour on Monday, April 1, and is currently the highest in Atlantic Canada.

Not nearly high enough in Byrne’s estimation. “We’ve seen cost of living rise significantly and we’ve seen significant issues in rent going up,’’ he said. “We have all seen the cost of food go up, and it is only fair that wages rise as well.’’

He noted more than 38 per cent of the Island’s workforce – nearly 24,000 workers – are classified as the working poor. He said the social assistance system, the health system and the justice system all pay a high cost for the widespread poverty in the province.

“The worst and the highest cost of this,’’ he added, “is the human toll that it takes. We’re asking people to live without the hope and dignity that everybody is entitled to, that everybody should live with in our economy, in our society, in our community.’’

Byrne said the NDP is also committed to the introduction of a five-year pilot project on basic income. He noted all three parties in the legislature provided unanimous support for a motion urging the province to partner with the federal government to develop a basic income pilot project for P.E.I. Nothing has come of this to date.

He said Islanders should be appalled that the province has the lowest average weekly earnings in the country.

“The income gap that we talk about across the country exists here on P.E.I., too, where some people do really, really well but so many don’t,’’ he said. “We have to address those things, otherwise we don’t have an economy that works.’’

When asked what his broader economic policy is to attract more business, grow jobs and improve the economy in P.E.I., he again leaned on his call to increase wages of the working poor.

“The backbone of our economy is small business,’’ said Byrne. “The owners – the entrepreneurs – that are developing these businesses, they need a market. They have to sell whatever good and service that they have to a market. And the market when people are poor is small.’’

https://www.journalpioneer.com/news/local/pei-ndp-leader-says-working-po...

Elections PEI has removed gender identity from registration forms after complaints. 

LGBTQ groups on the Island are applauding Elections PEI for removing gender identity from a set of registration forms after receiving complaints. Daniel Boudreau, chair of PFLAG PEI, said the organization started hearing concerns from out-of-province voters who were trying to apply for mail-in-ballots.

Many of them were frustrated when they started filling out the application and noticed the document required voters to state their gender, he said. Boudreau said the forms, which are available online, required applicants to check boxes for one of only two options: male or female — and didn't provide the option not to disclose.

"For somebody who is on the gender spectrum and for somebody who is perhaps looking to transition, that can really mess with their sense of who they are," said Boudreau, who is also a volunteer for the Green Party of P.E.I.

The CBC reached out to Elections PEI for comment and the organization immediately replaced the application forms with new ones, removing the section requiring any information regarding gender.

Boudreau said he was thrilled to see such a fast response. "I would say a big congratulations to Elections PEI for doing that," he said. "We're not looking to vilify the organization. We're simply looking to remedy something and maybe do a little bit of education."

A spokesperson for Elections PEI said the application forms were outdated and failing to remove that section of the form was an oversight.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-lgbtq-groups-gen...

Trudeau's popularity is slipping even in Atlantic Canada, where they won all the seats in the last election. 

When voters in Prince Edward Island go to the polls next week, they'll be making their choice without any input from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Even though polls suggest Wade MacLauchlan's governing Liberals will need all the help they can get to stay in power, sources close to the campaign say they haven't reached out to their federal colleagues for support — a sign Trudeau's one-time rock-star status on the Island has become a political liability.

In the past, Trudeau was always a popular visitor on the island, both as Liberal leader and as prime minister. His public events typically attracted large crowds of supporters keen for a selfie or a handshake.

But as candidates knock on doors in advance of Tuesday's election, the voters who answer feel the need to vent about the prime minister, say campaign workers and insiders — Liberals and Progressive Conservatives alike — who spoke to The Canadian Press on condition of anonymity in order to freely discuss the state of play on the Island.

Officials in the Prime Minister's Office confirmed Tuesday that no one in the provincial Liberal camp has requested a campaign visit from Trudeau, and no travel to the Island is scheduled.

"It would be crazy," said one senior P.E.I. Liberal operative. "We wouldn't want them here."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-votes-campaign-l...

double post

Ghosts of Liberal PEI past administrations appear to be haunting the current Liberal government, including questions of government accountability and transparency, a $50 million lawsuit by an online gambling company for breach of faith, bribery and fraud allegations, government domination of legislative committees shutting down looking at issues, and problems arising from a lack of a provincial ombudsperson, a child advocate and an ethics commissioner, as well as a growing recognition that sea level rise due to global warming is threatening many PEI communities (see Posts #4 and 5 for more on climate change problems).

All of this is creating an atmosphere in which there is a widespread lack of trust in the Liberals. 

On the same day Island voters will decide whether to extend P.E.I.'s reign of Liberal rule, some ghosts of Liberal administrations past could be haunting leader Wade MacLauchlan's party from an Island courtroom.

Election day just happens to coincide with the first of four days set aside next week for hearings in Capital Markets Technologies' $50-million lawsuit against the P.E.I. government. The company accuses government of "breach of its good faith performance of contract and failure to act honestly in the performance of its contractual obligations."

The case originated in the wake of a secretive and failed attempt by the Liberal government of Robert Ghiz to make P.E.I. a regulator of online gambling. The four days of hearings are to debate motions on behalf of the multiple defendants in the suit to have the case dismissed — as was an earlier statement of claim from CMT in 2016. Fresh evidence available for the lawyers to cite in their arguments includes transcripts of cross-examinations of some key players in the previous Liberal administration, including former premier Robert Ghiz and former finance minister Wes Sheridan. Both are named as defendants in the suit.

In 2015, as Ghiz, Sheridan and others were bowing out of provincial politics, e-gaming and controversies surrounding P.E.I.'s provincial nominee program became key election issues, with the PCs, NDP and Greens all calling for a public inquiry.

Four years later there's no more talk of inquiries, but as those controversies continue through the court system the same three parties are talking about ways to increase government accountability and transparency, and as the Green Party puts it, to "re-establish trust in government." ...

Three whistleblowers who spoke out in 2011 alleging bribery and fraud within P.E.I.'s provincial nominee program are now suing the province after P.E.I.'s privacy commissioner concluded in 2018 that government was directly or indirectly responsible for a privacy breach involving the three.

Bevan-Baker said the two lawsuits could come with "a very significant price tag" for Island taxpayers. One measure both the Greens and PCs have included in their platforms is a provincial ombudsman, something that's been talked about on P.E.I. for years. ...

Both parties also promise to make the province's new child advocate fully independent. Years after the jury at a coroner's inquest looking into the death of four-year-old Nash Campbell recommended P.E.I. create a position for a child advocate, the MacLauchlan government finally did so. But unlike child advocates in every other province, P.E.I.'s is not an independent officer of the legislature. Instead it's a position that answers to cabinet and the premier.

The PCs also say they would expand the scope of P.E.I.'s Ethics Commissioner, a position created by MacLauchlan and again a position that serves under the premier. The Tories said they would make that a full-time, arms-length position with the authority to address conflicts of interest, ethics and lobbying issues. The NDP also propose expanding that position in their platform.

And PC Leader Dennis King said his party would shift the balance of power on legislative standing committees from government to opposition parties, to strip government of the ability to stymie opposition parties when they try to call witnesses, as the Liberals did when opposition MLAs tried to call witnesses to talk about their role in the e-gaming affair.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-ghosts-of-libera...

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There is a very high turnout in the advance polls with 36.4% of the electorate already having voted. Generally, this is not a good sign for the party in power, in this case the Liberals, as people who are unhappy with the government tend to be more motivated to vote. 

With the provincial election in P.E.I. only days away, election officials are reporting a good turnout at advance polls.

Elections P.E.I. says 37,865 voters cast ballots over three days this past week. 

That's 36.4 per cent of the Island's eligible voters.

Elections CEO Tim Garrity says that's a big increase over the 2015 provincial general election, when almost 9,000 fewer voters cast ballots in advance polls.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ceo-of-elections-p-e-i-reports-good-turnou...