As most Islanders know by now, Dennis King announced that he was stepping down as Prince Edward Island’s premier, effective on Feb. 21. King said he was leaving politics after consulting with his family over the holidays. He hinted that politics was keeping him from spending time with his family.

But on March 3, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that King is Canada’s new ambassador to Ireland, leaving Islanders to wonder what exactly accounts for his resignation in the first place.

Perhaps some clues as to the reasons behind King’s decision can be traced back to a provincial election night roughly two years ago.

2023 ELECTION NIGHT

On April 3, 2023, Dennis King’s Progressive Conservatives won 22 seats, and almost 56 per cent of the popular vote.

King’s Liberal opponents were reduced to three MLAs. The provincial Greens, under leader Peter Bevan-Baker, fell from eight to two seats.

But the real story about the election were the signs that, going forward, it might not be business as usual for PEI politics.

Voter turnout in April 2023 was the lowest in several decades. This was due to several factors, including public dissatisfaction with King’s decision to defy provincial election date legislation and call an early election.

A March 10, 2023, Guardian editorial stated that King’s move was “unnecessary and smacks of arrogance.”

Yet, low turnout could also have been due to the perception that P.E.I.’s political parties were not addressing issues that really mattered to Islanders. Everyone from the local media to the political parties themselves told Islanders over and over again that the biggest topics of concern were health care, affordable housing and climate change. All four political parties made lavish promises to spend lots of money to address these issues, but many eligible P.E.I. voters chose not to cast a ballot. Why?

A clue to this answer may be found at a meeting held in Montague on the evening of March 18, 2023, smack in the middle of the election campaign. Over 400 Islanders, many of whom could not fit into the hall assigned for the meeting, showed up to hear speakers discuss concerns about land use in King’s County. Others followed the meeting online.

The Montague forum was the third in a series of meetings organized by the Coalition for the Protection of P.E.I. Lands. The group’s primary allegation was that shell companies associated with Buddhist organizations were buying up land in violation of the province’s Lands Protection Act. The coalition stated that “numerous governments have appeared to have thwarted the spirit and intent” of the act.

Despite the size of the forum in Montague, none of the party leaders commented on the meeting. Nor did King promise to make land use a top government priority if re-elected. Instead, he pledged that his government would “lead with humility and with kindness.”

OUT OF STEP

Yet, King should have realized that the use of buzzwords such as “kindness” and “humility” were out of step with modern-day voters who want more substantiative leadership than the use of high-sounding rhetoric about vague policy connotations. In the wake of a global pandemic, and amidst a recession whose crippling inflation threatened livelihoods across society, emotional slogans like King’s “positive politics” weren’t likely to satisfy today’s voters who increasingly see the status quo as untenable.

Fast forward to 2025 and the signs of voter dissatisfaction are legion, including the resounding victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, 2024.

Then in late January 2025 came the bombshell report on foreign interference in Canadian elections. As the New York Times reported, the Trudeau government had “fiercely opposed” the inquiry in the first place. Based on months of hearings, testimony and the examination of classified documents, the judge who led the commission said “trust in Canadian democratic institutions has been shaken.” The report stated the Trudeau government had taken “too long to act” against attempts by China and India to meddle in the country’s elections.

Meanwhile, things may look quieter in P.E.I., but they really aren’t. Last spring over 600 Islanders attended a public meeting in downtown Charlottetown to discuss land holdings by Buddhist monks and nuns on P.E.I. No MPs nor MLAs attended. The local media were conspicuous by their absence.

TRANSPARENT REPORT

But now, in early 2025, the provincial government has ordered IRAC to complete an investigation into Buddhist land acquisitions on P.E.I. Green MLA Matt MacFarlane says he wants this investigation and its report to be fully transparent, unlike an earlier report in 2018 which was never made available. A book on Communist China’s presence on Prince Edward Island is also due to be published in May.

Of course, there were other controversial issues that may have affected King’s decision to step down, notably the UPEI medical school, the partnership deal with the NHL, and the upcoming e-gaming trial.

Still, in light of events over the last two years, King’s resignation was hardly surprising. Bubbling voter discontent about land ownership on P.E.I. likely played a large part. If so, Dennis King was entitled to conclude that he and his government were in for a rough ride over the remainder of 2025 and beyond.

The conclusion to be drawn is that P.E.I.’s political parties should start talking plainly about the things that really matter to Islanders.