Promises aplenty and candidates lock in: What happened in Week 2 of P.E.I.'s campaign

Week 2 of the P.E.I. election is behind us, and we're at the halfway point now.

Last week started off in full sprint with a Monday night election call and each weekday booked solid with promises.

Week 2 kept pace but opened up the slate of promises to include issues outside of health care — a topic that dominated the conversation.

We saw the PCs make promises in child care, affordability, housing and communities; the Greens make promises in health care, land use and senior care; the Liberals make promises in mental health and senior care; and the NDP make promises in senior care, student tuition and affordability.

Here are some of the key promises this week:

Head over to our 2023 promise tracker for a full breakdown of the promises by each party. At this point, the NDP are still the only party to have released a full platform. 

Also on the campaign trail this week, the first of leaders' discussions took place Thursday afternoon. The P.E.I. Coalition for Women in Government hosted the four main party leaders on the topic of equity issues. There are more of these types of discussions and debates coming up, including the CBC Leaders' Debate on Monday, March 27.

Off the campaign trail we saw more indications of how some institutions are at the breaking point on Prince Edward Island.

The Medical Society of P.E.I. gave a blunt reminder this week that the province's health-care system is on the verge of collapse.

Dr. Krista Cassell, president of the society, said the system is running on the goodwill of the people working in it and they're at their wits' end. She urged all parties to make commitments to save health care immediately.

"We're really just running out of runway here. People are tired. People are frustrated. It's very hard to get your job done every day in this system," she told CBC News. "We're losing people, we're losing practitioners, because they're so fed up."

The P.E.I. Nurses Union made a similar call, frustrated that contract negotiations have been put on hold during the campaign. President Barbara Brookins said the union was at a "critical point" in negotiations with Health P.E.I. when the election was called. That has kicked negotiations down the road until mid-June for a union that's been without a contract for two years, she said.

"It just keeps going on and on and we don't think it can get any worse and it does get worse," she said. "Nurses have been asked over and over again to pick up, to do more, to hold the system together, and we can't continue to rely on nurses. We just can't. The system is crumbling and we need to address it now."

That gave other parties the opportunity to slam the PCs over the snap election call.