Congratulations to the P.E.I Liberals!

The Prince Edward Island Liberals under leader Robert Ghiz won big last night. They achieved a mirror image of the 2003 election results (the seat breakdown is actually an exact mirror image of the 2003 results), sweeping the Pat Binns Tories out of office. The Liberals improved their raw vote across the province by about 10,000 votes, improved the popular vote percentage by over 10%, and increased their seats from 4 to 23. The Liberals received almost 53% of the vote, over 11 points above the Tories’ vote total. I am personally glad that the pro-Stephen Harper Pat Binns (who following the departure of Bernard Lord was the most pro-Harper Premier in Atlantic Canada) has been soundly defeated. The only bit of bad news from this election result is that it could cause Pat Binns to enter federal politics. I did some calculations and found that the provincial Tories won the federal riding of Cardigan by about 4 points or by about 48% to 44%. This was the only place of residual popularity for Binns anywhere across the province. The Liberals easily won the 3 other federal ridings. Binns provincial riding (which he was re-elected in) is located in the federal Cardigan riding and Binns himself represented Cardigan in the federal House of Commons from 1984 to 1988 before being swept out along with all other Island federal Tories in the 1988 federal election due to the Island’s opposition to Brian Mulroney’s Free Trade Agreement. Binns himself was swept out by about 8 points by the now-current MP Lawrence MacAulay. But this was before he was Premier and Binns has gained plenty of stature since that 1988 loss. My concern is that with Binns no longer Premier, he will quit provincial politics and run in the federal Cardigan riding against Liberal MP Lawrence MacAulay. If Binns were to do that he would have a significant chance of winning due to his residual popularity in Cardigan and the fact that he won his own riding within Cardigan by a wide margin. This is my concern about what could happen but for now I will rejoice in the election of a new Liberal majority government in P.E.I. and the ousting of a Harper-friendly Tory. Congratulations to the P.E.I. Liberals!