Dennis King

Dennis King was PEI's Premier when the island's housing market went from one of Canada's most affordable to genuinely broken. Rents doubled. Long-term residents were priced out of communities their families had been in for generations. He's a moderate Conservative who worked across party lines, which I respect. But the housing response wasn't fast enough or big enough for what was happening. People I know in PEI describe a place that feels like it's being taken over by people who discovered it and drove up prices, while the people who made it what it is can't afford to stay. That happened on his watch.

Dennis King was PEI's Premier through the years when the island's housing market went from affordable to broken. He's a Progressive Conservative who worked cooperatively with other parties in a minority government situation, which I give him credit for. But PEI's housing crisis — rents that doubled, a vacancy rate that crashed near zero, longtime residents who couldn't afford to stay in communities their families had lived in for generations — happened on his watch. He made some moves on rent control and housing supply. It wasn't enough and it wasn't fast enough. The island changed and not everyone who loved it got to stay.

Dennis King has led PEI through difficult years and I'll credit him with relatively stable pandemic management. But the healthcare situation on the Island is genuinely alarming. More than 36,000 Islanders have been on a waitlist for a family doctor — in a province of roughly 170,000 people, that's nearly one in five residents without primary care. His government's push for a new medical school at UPEI faced opposition from the Medical Society of PEI and from Health PEI's own former CEO, who also alleged that the Premier's office interfered with his ability to speak honestly about healthcare challenges. Suppressing inconvenient voices inside your own health authority is not the transparency that Islanders deserve from their elected leadership. There's been progress but it's been too slow for too many families.