Who will be P.E.I.'s Official Opposition? Speaker's decision due Tuesday

A new sitting of the P.E.I. legislature will begin Tuesday with the Speaker settling an unprecedented conundrum for the Island: Which party should form the Official Opposition, if two of them have the same number of seats?

From 2019 to 2023, the Green Party had Official Opposition status, much of that time falling during the only minority parliament ever to sit in P.E.I. history.

But the Liberals and the Greens both lost seats to the PCs in the 2023 general election, and the Greens lost more. With a 3-2 edge in terms of MLAs, the Liberals took over Official Opposition status when the house sat last May.

This month, the Greens evened the score with what many considered a surprise byelection win in District 19 Borden-Kinkora, taking the seat from the PCs.

There are perks to being the Official Opposition, including an extra $27,000 in salary and a government vehicle for the party leader; the right for one of its MLAs to chair the Public Accounts committee; and an extra seat on the legislative management committee, which has authority over budgetary matters within the Legislative Assembly of P.E.I., including caucus budgets. The Official Opposition also has an edge when it comes to speaking time in the house. 

Deciding which party serves as Official Opposition will be the first order of business for Speaker Darlene Compton when the legislature is back in session Tuesday.

Both the Greens and the Liberals have sent submissions to the Speaker, whose job it will be to decide on a path forward.

P.E.I. has no law or rule to decide what happens in such a case; nor is there any local precedent for the Speaker to draw from. 

There is a rule when it comes to declaring a winner in a district, though. Elections P.E.I. held a coin toss in 2015 after a tie vote in one of the province's 27 electoral districts. That measure to decide which candidate goes forward as MLA in the event of a tie is still on the books.

With regard to Official Opposition status, the Greens have pointed to the greater share of the popular vote the party won in the 2023 election — 22 per cent versus 17 per cent for the Liberals — as a sign that Islanders wanted them to take on the primary role of holding government to account.

Constitutional lawyer Lyle Skinner told CBC News recently that Compton is likely to refer to a ruling from a similar situation in New Brunswick. In that case, the Speaker relied on incumbency as the deciding factor — meaning the Liberals would maintain their Opposition status because they already have it.

But Skinner noted there have been other solutions in similar situations, such as when opposition parties agreed to rotate official status in the Yukon legislature.

Ultimately, he said it's the Speaker's decision to make.

There was nothing to suggest the Greens and Liberals were close to any kind of agreement going into this sitting.