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.

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]

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