King says his new cabinet will have 'a record number' of women - Action News
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PEI

King says his new cabinet will have 'a record number' of women

Premier Dennis King says Prince Edward Island's next provincial cabinet will have a 'record number' of women. The bar is pretty low, though.

6 out of the 7 women elected on Monday are in the Progressive Conservative caucus

No shortage of challenges in fixing P.E.I.'s health-care system, says newly re-elected Premier

2 years ago
Duration 6:49
"We will take another look at our recruitment strategies and we had a number of policy platforms that we unveiled that we will put into practice," says newly re-elected P.E.I Premier Dennis King on his plans to stabilize and change the province's struggling health-care system.

Premier Dennis King saysPrince Edward Island's next provincial cabinet will have a "record number" of women.

For context, that means at least three female members, according to research by thelegislature's non-partisan administrator.

In an interview with CBC's Power & Politics Wednesday, King said that with 22 out of the 27 MLAs elected in Monday's general election being Progressive Conservatives, he will have a talented pool of MLAsfrom which to draw when selecting his ministers and a lot of them are women.

"Building cabinet is difficult at the best of times, and it's going to be really challenging this time," he said."I know I'm really excited to have six extremely capable women in our PC caucus who will do a great job, and I'm looking forward to get to work with them."

Joey Jeffrey, the clerk of the Legislative Assembly of P.E.I., told CBC News Thursday that going back to 1999, "asfar as we can tell, there have never been more than two women in cabinet at the same time."

He added: "There have been several instances when threewomen served in the cabinet of one premier, but not all at the same time."

Man in sports coat stands in legislature.
Joey Jeffrey, clerk of the Legislative Assembly of P.E.I., checked on past cabinet compositions going back to 1999 at CBC's request on Thursday. He notes that the first female MLA in PEI was elected in 1971. (Shane Hennessey/CBC)

Compton, Jameson only women before call

King's most recent cabinet had 10 members, including himself. Darlene Compton and Natalie Jameson were the only women.

This last provincial election saw a record number of female candidates on the ballot but only seven ended up being elected: one Green and six Progressive Conservatives.

Thatnumber is unchanged from the 2019 election, but six are now on the government side of the house, a record number for the Progressive Conservatives.

P.E.I. Premier Dennis King poses with his new cabinet at Government House, July 15, 2021. Left to right are Cory Deagle, Ernie Hudson, Bloyce Thompson, Matthew MacKay, Darlene Compton, Premier Dennis King, Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry, Steven Myers, Natalie Jameson, Jamie Fox and Mark McLane.
P.E.I. Premier Dennis King poses with Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry and his new cabinet at Government House in July 2021. Left to right are Cory Deagle, Ernie Hudson, Bloyce Thompson, Matthew MacKay, Darlene Compton, King, Perry, Steven Myers, Natalie Jameson, Jamie Fox and Mark McLane. (Kerry Campbell/CBC)

That would mean it's easier for a PC cabinet to come closer to gender parity this time around.

The P.E.I. Coalition of Women has previously called out the lack of female representation in King's Executive Council, saying it's among the lowest in the country.

King said he's committed to appointing more women.

"We have a lot of difficult decisions to make over the next number of days as to how we build a new cabinet. But I'm very, very grateful that we have such wonderful talent and depth that we can add. So I hope our cabinet will have a mixture of experience, of new blood," he said.

"We will have many more women in the cabinet and also try to balance geography across the province which we're better able to do this time than we were last time."

With files from Power & Politics