Celebrating 175 Years of Responsible Government
2026 marks the 175th anniversary of responsible government on Prince Edward Island. As such, it is a fitting time to look at how it came to be and what it means today.
Elected representation on PEI dates back to the 1770s, but prior to the 1850s representatives had no power to hold accountable the appointed officials who formed the colony’s administration, i.e. the Executive Council. The effort to make government responsible to the representatives of the electorate was a struggle that played out over several years in the mid-19th century.
Colonial Beginnings
As a British colony, PEI’s Legislature consisted of a Lieutenant Governor, a Legislative Council, an Executive Council, and a House of Assembly. The Lieutenant Governor and Councilors were appointed, and the members of the Assembly were elected to represent constituents in ridings across the Island. The Lieutenant Governor was both the British Crown’s representative and the head of administration. The Legislative Council examined bills passed by the Assembly, with the power to approve or veto them. The members of Legislative Council also served as Executive Council, advising the Lieutenant Governor in the administration of government, and indeed many members also held paid administrative positions. The Assembly could put forward legislative measures and levy taxes, but had no effective ability to appeal or overrule the decisions of the other institutions of the Legislature. Governance generally followed this framework into the 1830s.
Land Ownership: Planting the Seeds of Change
The land ownership system on the Island served as a motivating factor in the pursuit of responsible government. Many felt it benefited absentee proprietors and the local elite more than the people who actually worked the land. The Land Question was a major political issue in 19th century PEI, and by the 1830s land reform was the goal of a significant portion of the Assembly’s membership.
The Assembly often butted heads with the Executive and Legislative Councils. The Assembly often did not agree with the policies of Executive Council, and the Council generally did not share the views of the Reformers. Some councilors were employed as land agents who worked on behalf of proprietors, making them unpopular with the Assembly’s rural tenant electorate. The Assembly could express its will by passing bills, but in their legislative capacity Councilors could veto them. A “family compact” existed in the Councils, whereby many members were related by blood or marriage and, in the view of the Assembly, put their interests before those of the colony. Council appointments were “during pleasure,” or essentially indefinite, so the Assembly could not simply wait for the appointment of Councilors more sympathetic to the reform ideals. To bring about the change they wished to see, the Reformers in the Assembly realized they had to change the dynamic between the institutions of the Legislature; in particular, the executive had to be made responsible to the elected representatives of the people.
Momentum for responsible government began building in the late 1830s. The Assembly first took aim at the family compact, and urged the King to make the Executive and Legislative Councils separate bodies with distinct memberships. This separation took place in 1839, and included the placement of a few members of the House of Assembly on the Executive Council. The separation served to disperse some of the influence of the family compact. The ending of Council appointment during pleasure also happened in 1839. These long-term appointments had originally been used in order to bring qualified candidates for public offices to the colonies from Britain. By 1839, there were enough qualified colonial residents to fill these offices, and Secretary of State Lord John Russell made it known that colonial officers, including Executive Councilors, should “retire from the public service as often as any sufficient motives of public polity may suggest.” His intention was to make colonial officers more accountable to their Lieutenant Governors, but the Reformers interpreted his instructions as an endorsement of the executive’s responsibility to the elected representatives of the people. In April, 1840, the Assembly sent a request to Queen Victoria to grant responsible government, citing Russell’s despatch, an inability to settle the Land Question while land proprietors influenced the administration, and a lack of confidence in both the Executive and Legislative Councils. It even threatened to consult constituents on whether to merge the Island with a neighbouring colony if change wasn’t made, as this would be preferable to the continued influence of absentee proprietors.
The request was not granted, and a decade of antagonism followed. The Assembly frequently expressed its non-confidence in both Councils. Lieutenant Governor Sir Henry Vere Huntley labeled Assembly members “plausible paupers” and “backwoodsmen” and dismissed the entire body as lacking “any sufficient intelligence to govern at all.” The Colonial Office argued that the Island was not sufficiently developed to warrant responsible government. But the Assembly persisted and the granting of responsible government in other colonies only spurred further calls for it on PEI.
Ultimately the argument would be settled by money. Prior to 1849, public funds on the Island came from an annual grant from Britain, which was controlled by the Lieutenant Governor and Executive Council, and duties and taxes, which were controlled by the Assembly. But the Island’s revenue eventually surpassed its expenses, and so the Colonial Office informed the Lieutenant Governor that effective April 1, 1849, the grant from the British Parliament would no longer be given. This meant that the House of Assembly would assume the civil list, the salaries and expenses of government officials. The Assembly agreed to do so on the condition that responsible government be granted first. Further disagreement ensued, and Lieutenant Governor Sir Donald Campbell dissolved the Assembly in the hope that a new one would relent. But a Reform Party majority was elected in the new Assembly with George Coles as its leader, and soon a resolution was moved to withhold the funds for government supply unless responsible government was granted. The institutions of the Legislature were still at odds when Campbell died in office in October, 1850. His successor, Sir Alexander Bannerman, was given instructions to grant responsible government. He did so, and on April 25, 1851, George Coles formed an Executive Council responsible to the House of Assembly, consisting of himself as Premier, Charles Young as Attorney-General, Joseph Pope as Colonial Treasurer, James Warburton as Colonial Secretary, Edward Whelan as Queen’s Printer, Allan Fraser as Collector of Customs, and Alexander Rae as Speaker of the Assembly.
The New Way of Governing
A period of adjustment followed the granting of responsible government as roles changed within the Legislature. Despite being central to the motivation behind the push for responsible government, the Land Question remained unresolved. Executive Council became accountable to the elected representatives of the people, but their will could still be denied by the Colonial Office. The Imperial Government refused to assent to Island legislation that it considered contrary to the rights of property. To the Reformers’ frustration, land proprietors in Britain continued to use their influence to have local attempts to change the land ownership system overruled. The Land Question would remain a dominant feature of Island politics and culture until the Legislature negotiated a resolution as part of its terms of union with Canada in 1873.
What does "responsible government" mean today?
According to the principle of responsible government, the Legislative Assembly, on behalf of the electorate, holds the government to account; it asks questions regarding decisions and policy, votes to grant money for programs and services, scrutinizes proposed legislation and generally oversees the actions of government. The government must respond with justification for its actions, and it is only able to carry out its mandate when it has the support and confidence of the majority in the Assembly.
Who is the "government" in the Legislative Assembly?
Though “the government” is often used to refer to all elected representatives or all the members of the governing party in the legislature, it more accurately refers to the executive, i.e. the Cabinet that is composed of the Premier and ministers in charge of the policy and administration that governs the province. Non-executive members of the same party are private members, and members of parties not in power are opposition members. All these members together form the Legislative Assembly, PEI’s legislature.
What does it mean for the Assembly to have "confidence" in the government?
The Assembly typically functions in a state of implied confidence in the government. The opposition may voice its criticisms, but it’s the view of the majority of the legislature that determines whether the government may proceed. In the Westminster system of Parliament, which PEI and other Canadian jurisdictions follow, confidence is more of a convention than a written rule. As such, there are explicit and implicit ways in which confidence may be questioned. A motion may explicitly express non-confidence in the government, and the government may declare a motion to be a matter of confidence. Certain other motions, such as on the granting of supply or the approval of the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, are generally accepted to be implicit motions of confidence in that if they are defeated, confidence is considered lost. When confidence is lost, whether explicitly or implicitly, it is expected that the executive will resign to allow a new government to be formed or that an election will be called.
Explicit motions of non-confidence do not arise frequently, let alone pass. In the past few decades, perhaps the closest the government came to being defeated on such a motion was in the late 1960s. On April 25th, 1967, while debating the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, the following amendment was moved:
"We regret that your Honour's advisors have failed by reason of inertia, and lack of leadership in the face of serious provincial problems, and are not entitled to the confidence of this House, and have lost the confidence of the people of Prince Edward Island."
This was obviously a strong challenge to the executive’s right to govern. The amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 14 to 13. Two years later, on June 5th, 1969, confidence was implicitly at risk when voting on an Appropriations Bill (which grants money, or supply, for the government to use) yielded a deadlock of 15 Aye to 15 Nay. The Speaker had to cast the deciding vote, and did so with the Ayes, and thus the bill passed. Had the bill been defeated, the Assembly would have denied the government the money required to carry out its work, which is essentially an expression of non-confidence.
The closeness of these votes was due to the fact that, in the late 1960s, members of the governing party in the legislature only slightly outnumbered the opposition. When the governing party enjoys a greater majority, non-confidence is less of a threat for the government. Minority governments are more vulnerable to non-confidence motions because the multiple parties that form the opposition can vote together to see that they pass. However, majority governments have been the norm for most of PEI’s political history, with only two parties represented in the Legislative Assembly. Only in recent years has a third party been represented, and a minority government existed in 2019-2020; it was able to maintain the confidence of the Assembly until it became a majority government by gaining seats in by-elections.
If confidence motions are the strictest means of evaluation in a responsible government system, it seems they require a certain composition within the legislature to represent a realistic threat to the government’s mandate. This, however, assumes that all members vote according to party lines. There is no rule that private members of the governing party must always vote in support of the government within the legislature (nor that opposition members must always vote against it). However, party discipline usually ensures that they do. Within the legislature, members are usually expected to toe the party line established in caucus. Failure to do so can result in a member being censured or otherwise receiving party disapproval, either publicly or privately. In this manner, the executive is somewhat buffered against the method by which responsible government is enforced---the confidence convention---by the enforcement of party discipline.
How does the composition of the legislature affect responsible government?
How effectively the government can be held to account also depends on size of the executive within the legislature. An executive can dominate the legislature more easily when it forms a larger portion within it. PEI has the smallest legislature among the provinces, at 27 seats. Cabinet may consist of eight to twelve members; in recent years, it has fluctuated between ten and twelve, meaning the executive has accounted for more than a third of the legislature. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has examined the issue of executive size within democratic legislatures. It is necessary to have a sufficient number of ministers to lead the various departments of government, even in a small jurisdiction such as PEI. On the other hand, a balance between executive capacity and size is desirable, and the CPA has recommended that executive size be limited to a maximum of one third of the total membership of the legislature. Otherwise, it becomes difficult for the wider body of legislative members to exercise their oversight function on an exceedingly large sub-group among them.
The principle of responsible government is evidently not perfect in practice. The ability to uphold it is subject to the strategies of the players involved and the composition of the legislature at any given time. But even if a government is not at serious risk of falling to a confidence motion, it is an entrenched principle that it must always respond to the scrutiny of the legislature, and that confidence can always be tested. It’s a principle that reformers fought for in the first half of the 19th century, when government was imposed by the few with little recourse for the many. It is because of those reformers’ efforts that elected representatives today can hold government accountable on behalf of all Islanders.
Sources:
MacKinnon, Frank. The Government of Prince Edward Island. University of Toronto Press: 1951.
Journal of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island. 25 April, 1967.
Recommended Benchmarks for Pacific Island Democratic Legislatures. Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. 2009