1966 Prince Edward Island general election

1966 Prince Edward Island general election

←  1962 May 30, 1966 (1966-05-30) (11 July 1966 [1] ) 1970  →
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All 32 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island 17 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   Lib PC Leader Alex Campbell Walter R. Shaw Party Liberal Progressive Conservative Leader since December 11, 1965 September 17, 1957 Leader's seat 5th Prince 1st Queens Last election 11 seats, 49.4% 19 seats, 50.6% Seats won 17 15 Seat change 6 4 Popular vote 47,065 46,118 Percentage 50.5% 49.5% Swing 1.1pp 1.1pp
Seats won by each party per district. Voters elect two members (one Councillor and Assemblyman) from each of the 16 districts.
Premier before election Walter R. Shaw Progressive Conservative Premier after election Alex Campbell Liberal

The 1966 Prince Edward Island general election was held on May 30, 1966. ^[2]

The election in the riding of 1st Kings was delayed until July 11, 1966 due to the death of Liberal Assemblyman and candidate William Acorn. ^[3] As it turned out, other ridings elected a total of 15 Liberals and 15 Progressive Conservatives, and the riding of 1st Kings would by itself decide the general election.

The outgoing Progressive Conservative government attempted to win 1st Kings by resorting to such methods as naming one of the PC candidates (Keith Mackenzie) as Minister of Transports, and paving 30 miles of road in the district. ^[4] At the time, a reporter from the Charlottetown Guardian commented on how "the riding may well sink under the weight of the [paving] machines". The strategy failed as both Liberal candidates in 1st Kings ultimately won, giving the Liberals a 17 to 15 majority and enabling Liberal leader Alex Campbell to become Premier.

The 1966 election was the first following the splitting of the 5th Queens district. The Progressive Conservative government decided to break with the tradition of each county having five ridings and ten members; by splitting 5th Queens, it gave the city of Charlottetown two ridings and therefore four members; and gave Queen's County a sixth district. This was the single biggest change to the map since 1893 when the ridings were devised. In that time population shifts had made some changes needed, as Charlottetown's population was more than five times that of some of the more rural ridings. The Progressive Conservatives had hoped that traditionally Progressive Conservative Charlottetown would vote in two additional Progressive Conservative members to the legislature; on election day the new riding elected two Progressive Conservatives, but the now modified old riding (Fifth Queen's) elected two Liberals.

Party Standings

↓

17	15
Liberal	PC

Party		Party Leader	Seats			Popular Vote
			1962	Elected	Change	#	%	Change
	Liberal	Alex Campbell	11	17	+6	47,065	50.5%	+1.1%
	Progressive Conservative	Walter R. Shaw	19	15	-4	46,118	49.5%	-1.1%

Popular vote Liberal   50.51% PC   49.49%

Seats summary Liberal   53.13% PC   46.87%

Electoral reform

The Legislature of Prince Edward Island had two levels of membership from 1893 to 1996 - Assemblymen and Councillors. This was a holdover from when the Island had a bicameral legislature, the General Assembly and the Legislative Council.

In 1893, the Legislative Council was abolished and had its membership merged with the Assembly, though the two titles remained separate and were elected by different electoral franchises. Assembleymen were elected by eligible voters within a district. Up until past the 1962 election, Councillors were only elected by landowners within a district.

The Shaw government passed an Act in 1963, eliminating this requirement. ^[5]

Henceforth, until multi-member seats were abolished (1996), the Assemblyman and the Councillor in each district would be elected by universal adult suffrage identically. But each seat would be filled in separate contest, through First past the post. The separate contests were held that way despite the fact that the members would sit in the same chamber. They ensured that in each contest a party would run just one candidate so no candidate had to run against others of the same party as would have happened in a one-ballot, multi-member district. It also allowed one contest to be between Catholics of various parties and the other contest to be between Protestants of various parties. ^[6]

As well the ability of a voter to cast multiple votes in a contest was discontinued. Henceforth the rule would be "one man, one vote" or actually "one man, two votes". ^[7]

Members Elected

Kings

District	Assemblyman		Party	Councillor		Party
1st Kings		Bruce L. Stewart	Liberal		Daniel J. MacDonald	Liberal
2nd Kings		Walter Dingwell	Progressive Conservative		Leo Rossiter	Progressive Conservative
3rd Kings		Thomas A. Curran	Progressive Conservative		Preston MacLure	Progressive Conservative
4th Kings		Lorne Bonnell	Liberal		Keir Clark	Liberal
5th Kings		Cyril Sinnott	Progressive Conservative		George J. Ferguson	Liberal

Prince

District	Assemblyman		Party	Councillor		Party
1st Prince		Prosper Arsenault	Liberal		Robert E. Campbell	Liberal
2nd Prince		George Dewar	Progressive Conservative		Robert Grindlay	Progressive Conservative
3rd Prince		Henry Wedge	Progressive Conservative		Keith Harrington	Progressive Conservative
4th Prince		Max Thompson	Liberal		Frank Jardine	Liberal
5th Prince		Earle Hickey	Liberal		Alexander B. Campbell	Liberal

Queens

District	Assemblyman		Party	Councillor		Party
1st Queens		Frank Myers	Progressive Conservative		Walter Russell Shaw	Progressive Conservative
2nd Queens		Sinclair Cutcliffe	Liberal		Lloyd MacPhail	Progressive Conservative
3rd Queens		Cecil A. Miller	Liberal		J. Russell Driscoll	Progressive Conservative
4th Queens		J. Stewart Ross	Liberal		Harold P. Smith	Liberal
5th Queens		Gordon L. Bennett	Liberal		Elmer Blanchard	Liberal
6th Queens [8]		J. David Stewart	Progressive Conservative		Alban Farmer	Progressive Conservative

References

1. 1st Kings district election was delayed July 11, 1966
2. "Provincial General Election Results, 1966" (PDF). Elections PEI. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 25, 2015. Retrieved May 25, 2015.
3. "Prince Edward Island Chief Electoral Officer report for 1966" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 8, 2007. Retrieved September 29, 2006.
4. Political historian Wayne MacKinnon, as quoted on http://fruitsandvotes.com/?p=250
5. Fred Driscoll. "History and Politics of Prince Edward Island" (PDF). Canadian Parliamentary Review.
6. Bolger, Canada's Smallest Province, p. 294-5; 308-316
7. Bolger, Canada's Smallest Province, p. 316
8. new riding

Further reading

• Saywell, John, ed. (1967). Canadian Annual Review for 1966 . Toronto: University of Toronto Press.