The Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly.

• Author: MacKinnon, Wayne
• Position: Essay

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.

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The Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly, established in 1773, is the second-oldest parliament in Canada, the first having been established in Nova Scotia in 1758. The establishment of the colonial government, and its subsequent evolution, was the result of one of the most unusual arrangements in British colonial history. Land in the colony, then part of Nova Scotia, was awarded by lottery to proprietors in 1767 who undertook, as part of the conditions of their grants, to settle the colony with Protestants, pay quitrents (a form of taxation) to the Crown and to fulfill various other conditions. The new proprietors, many of whom were to not fulfill the conditions of their grants, petitioned the Crown for the establishment of a separate government free from the influences of Nova Scotia. In return, the proprietors agreed to defray the expenses of the new colonial government. Prince Edward Island thus became a separate colony in 1769. The subsequent conflicts between absentee proprietors and tenants, known as the "Land Question," dominated Island politics for more than a century.

At first, administration of the new colony was limited to the Governor, an appointed Legislative Council and a Supreme Court. Although provision was made for a twelve member Legislative Council, the first Governor, Walter Patterson, limited the number to seven because he could not find enough suitable candidates in the small and struggling colony. Despite his best efforts, Patterson was unable to enforce collection of quitrents. The establishment of an assembly to reflect the popular will of the inhabitants was seen as a means of validating the administration's actions, and so, on July 7 of 1773, the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly convened for the first time. Its first acts confirmed the previous proceedings enacted by the Governor and Legislative Council.

Because of the small size and limited range of skills of the colony's residents, the number of members of the new assembly was limited to eighteen. They were elected at-large by male, Protestant residents over the age of 21. Folklore has it that the first assembly met in a Charlottetown tavern. Surveying the elected members, the sergeant-at-arms is reported as observing, "This is a damned queer parliament." He was fined for the outburst. (1)

In the small confines of Island politics, personal rivalries emerged; disputes occurred among the various factions of the population; there were ongoing disagreements and disputes with the Colonial Office; enforcing the conditions imposed upon the proprietors 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 placed under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Nova Scotia. The rank of the Prince Edward Island Governor was reduced to that of Lieutenant-Governor. In a letter from the Colonial Office to Patterson, it was noted that, "The Civil Establishment still continues a Burthen upon this country." (2)

Then as now, the governmental structures in Prince Edward Island demonstrate the operation of elaborate constitutional provisions in a small province. Although the tiny colony had all the trappings of a full-fledged Westminster model, the Legislative Assembly struggled to achieve an effective position and recognition of its parliamentary privileges. The political system was dominated by the appointed Executive Council and Legislative Council, largely consisting of the same people. Successive Governors would routinely dissolve the Legislative Assembly in efforts to achieve a more compliant membership. In some cases, Governors even refused to summon members for regular sessions. Members were relatively poor, uneducated and disorganized. The attitudes of the ruling cliques were expressed by one Governor who extolled the virtues of members of the two ruling councils, "men of Education, experience in the world" whose duty it was to, "oppose the overbearing dominion of ignorance" found in the assembly. (3) He blocked every attempt to grant more powers to the Assembly where, he said, "there neither is, nor do I think there can be for a long time yet, any sufficient intelligence to govern at all." His view of the electorate was equally dismissive, saying that Islanders, "are very carefully taught that only a 'backwoodsman' knows how to legislate for a 'backwoodsman'." (4) According to Frank MacKinnon, the Legislative Assembly, "found itself tolerated when needed and its power confined by the other branches." (5)

With some progress gradually being made in the settlement of the colony, the number of members in the Legislative Assembly was increased to 24 in 1839. At the same time, the single, colony-wide constituency was replaced by four dual-member constituencies in each of the three counties. (That number would be increased again in 1856 to 30 members elected from five dual-member constituencies in each county.)

Various reform movements were led in the Legislative Assembly, although political parties were slow to coalesce. One of the more successful movements was the Escheat Party which captured a majority of seats in the assembly in the 1830s. It sought to have the estates of the proprietors who had not fulfilled the original conditions of their grants returned to the Crown for redistribution to the tenants. Like many other reform and protest movements in the early years, it was frustrated by what was called the "backstairs influence" of the proprietors in London and the complicity and intimidation of their local agents who dominated the government of the colony and the political life of the day.

The Legislative Assembly achieved only minor progress in its efforts to be recognized. In 1839, the Executive Council and Legislative Councils were separated. The Legislative Assembly was given three seats on the Executive Council, although the members were appointed by the Governor without the approval of the assembly. Eventually, the movement towards responsible government joined with the demands for land and other reforms. The achievement of responsible government in Nova Scotia, led by reformers such as Joseph Howe, and the agitations in Upper and Lower Canada, made similar demands in Prince Edward Island inevitable. The view of the Colonial Office, however, was-that Prince Edward Island was yet too small and backward to be entitled to responsible government.

In 1850, the Liberal Reform party, led by George Coles, won 18 of the 24 assembly seats, and made responsible government its main objective. Despite the continued opposition of the Governor, and the controversy the demand generated in the colony, the Liberals refused to back down. Leading members of the party were offered seats on the Executive Council, but they rejected the invitation. In the 1851 session, the legislature virtually went "on strike", passing a vote of want of confidence in the government and refusing to vote supply. A petition previously tabled in the assembly stated that it would refuse to cooperate, "until the Government of this Island shall be remodeled, so as to enjoy the confidence of the people."

The impasse was eventually resolved when the Governor invited Coles to form a government which had the confidence of the Legislative Assembly. On April 23, 1851 the Liberals under Coles were appointed as members of the Executive Council, finally achieving the goal of responsible government. It was perhaps the finest hour experienced in the Legislative Assembly, before or since. "This was one of the boldest strokes ever attempted in colonial politics," it was noted, "but in light of all the circumstances it seems to have been almost inevitable." (6)

Responsible government, however, would not be the panacea for the colony's troubled political life. Religious, class and group rivalries, along with partisan and personality differences, led to shifting and temporary coalitions. The result was political instability: between 1851, when the colony achieved responsible government, and 1873, when Prince Edward Island joined Confederation, there were no less than 12 different governments. Debates over the Island's entry to Confederation, continued efforts to resolve the land question and political machinations related to the building of the Prince Edward Island railway (which bankrupted the colony) served to further exacerbate and enliven the colony's troubled political life.

The achievement of responsible government led to new calls for legislative reform. With the executive now drawn from members of the Legislative Assembly, the appointed Legislative Council became largely redundant. In an effort to resuscitate its increasingly moribund existence, it became an elected chamber with 13 members in 1862. It differed in one important respect from the assembly, however: its members were elected by only property owners as a check on the democratic impulses of the lower house.

With the entry into Confederation, there were new demands for legislative reform. The move to abolish upper houses which was taking place in other provinces had special resonance in Prince Edward Island, which many residents already considered to...