2023 promise tracker: Progressive Conservative Party of P.E.I.

You're going to hear a lot of promises during this Prince Edward Island election campaign. Here's a round-up of the key announcements from the Progressive Conservatives, led by Dennis King.

The full PC platform was released on March 24.

This page will be updated regularly until the election on April 3, so make sure to check back for the latest. To see promises made by the other three major parties, click on these links: 

Health care and doctor shortages

• Hire more physician assistants and nurse practitioners in emergency rooms, as well as hire care providers and advocates to support patients in ER waiting rooms.
• Make virtual care apps free for all Islanders to reduce pressure on emergency departments, and create a task force to "expedite offload delays for ambulances and hospitals."
• Add four new full-time ambulances and offer free tuition for primary care and advanced care paramedics in exchange for two years of service in P.E.I. Create recruitment incentives for "hard-to-recruit" paramedic positions.
• Add 16 more patient medical homes across P.E.I. by the end of 2024 and add 100 new full-time positions to support existing and future homes. Attach everyone on the Island's patient registry to a medical home in the next 24 months.
• Launch nurse practitioner-led walk-in clinics across P.E.I., and add telehealth access sites and in-person registration to Access P.E.I. locations.
• Provide operating grants to establish Access Clinic Exam Spaces for local pharmacists, physicians, nurse practitioners, and locum physicians to provide walk-in clinics for routine, non-urgent matters.
• Increase capacity at primary care access clinics in Charlottetown and Summerside, and open new clinics in West Prince and Kings County. 
• Create 50 new public home-care positions in the next two years.
• Establish Mobile Primary Care Clinics.
• Create a Primary Caregiver Grant of up to $1,500 a month to support families who choose to keep their loved ones at home longer instead of going to community care.
• Provide rebates up to $500 per year for home-based Medical Alert Systems for individuals over the age of 65 to allow seniors to stay at home longer.
• Create a Portable Health Benefits Program to provide health, dental, and medication insurance for workers who may not be employed full-time, year-round, or those facing barriers to insurance coverage.
• Increase the George Coles Bursary to $3,500 per year for post-secondary students and expand the program to include students studying off-Island in programs that are not offered in PEI and students enrolled in health-care training programs such as LPNs, RNs.
• Increase grants for Seniors Safe at Home to $15,000 and for Seniors Home Repair Program to $8,000.
• Provide free tuition for resident care workers (RCWs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and paramedics who train on P.E.I. in return for two years of service and launch an emergency medicine residency program. They'd also launch an earn-and-learn program to "upskill" RCWs to LPNs, and LPNs to registered nurses (RNs) without leaving the workforce.
• Launch an associate physician licence to allow foreign-trained doctors expedited licensing to practice "to a defined scope" under supervision of other fully licensed physicians.
• Introduce legislation to have domestic and foreign recognition of credentials for RCWs, LPNs and RNs recognized within set timeframes.
• Introduce a health bursary for students studying to become LPNs, RNs and paramedic off-Island in exchange for a return-in-service to work on P.E.I.
• Provide free licences to health-care professionals who left the workforce to return on a casual or part-time basis.
• Implement a virtual hallway program to connect family physicians with specialists for consults "to avoid unnecessary referrals to specialists."
• Provide access to free contraceptive care.
• Implement tools like Skip the Waiting Room across all areas of the health-care system to reduce no-show appointments and provide patients with the ability to book their own appointments.
• Add new Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists positions to the public system.
• Provide publicly-funded pelvic health therapy.
• Increase the Fitness and Activity Tax Credit to $1,000.
• Remove the age cap on continuous glucose monitoring devices.
• Reduce the co-pay for the generic drug program to $5.

Housing

• Launch a Rent-To-Own program with financing options through government so that Islanders have the opportunity to purchase a home after renting for 24 months.
• Provide a $25-million Infrastructure Fund to municipalities and regional development corporations to work with communities outside the capital area to develop construction-ready lots for Islanders to purchase and use for modular builds.
• Invest in public housing with the goal of eliminating the housing registry within the next 24 months.
• Establish new co-operative housing complexes across the province by working with communities, non-profits, and regional development corporations.
• Create opportunities for tiny home communities in rural P.E.I. where Islanders can purchase and build equity instead of paying rent.
• Launch a Closing Cost Housing Support Program to provide first-time home buyers with up to $2,500 toward closing costs for purchasing their first home.
• Issue straightforward, routine building permits instantly during an appointment with a multi-disciplinary.
• Reduce building permit wait times down to a maximum of 30 days by the end of 2023.
• Increase the Housing Challenge Fund by $50 million, which provides developers with two per cent financing for quick-start housing projects which will add at least another 250 units to the housing inventory.

Economy, workers, inflation, cost of living

• Increase the Basic Personal Exemption Amount to $15,000 over the next four years.
• Increase the Seniors Tax Credit by 40% to $6,510 and raise the threshold to $36,000.
• Introduce legislation to roll back property taxes to 2020 rates.
• Expand the Free Heat Pump program to include up to $100,000 household income by 2024.
• Grow the workforce to 90,000 jobs by 2026.
• Create a $10 million Upskilling and Re-Skilling Fund.
• Reactivate regional development corporations such as SRDC & CADC.
• Launch a $50 million Cleantech Energy Program.
• Establish a $2 million Adaptation Fund for employees to retrofit workplaces to make them more accessible for people with physical disabilities.
• Provide $1 million to Charlottetown Airport to increase flights into and out of YYG.
• Reduce ferry and bridge tolls to $20.
• Double the Seniors Hearing Aid Rebate to a maximum coverage of $6,000.
• Expand the Seniors Independence Initiative to provide up to $2,500 in assistance for individuals with a household income of up to $40,000 for a single person or $50,000 for a couple.
• Provide a $500 tutor rebate for students who need additional support.
• Establish a $2 million Adaptation Fund for employers and employees to retrofit workplaces to make them more accessible.

Environment, climate change

• Work with UPEI's School of Climate Change and Adaptation to create a 25-year coastal management plan.
• Increase setback requirements in shorelines and other sensitive areas.
• Create a Land Use Plan to develop and protect P.E.I.'s land.
• Launch an initiative where non-profits and community organizations would have local ownership of renewable energy projects, with profits going directly back to communities.
• Implement all recommendations from the Emergency Forestry Task Force.
• Increase nursery tree production by 30 per cent to 1.3 million trees per year.
• Transition to an all-electric school bus fleet by 2030.
• Introduce "Solar for Schools," to increase education around green technologies.
• Double investments in active transportation paths.
• Expand the electric vehicle charging network, specifically in rural areas, so P.E.I. become's  "Canada's most EV-friendly province."
• Increase funding for the P.E.i. Watershed Alliance network.
• Continue investing in Fiona clean-up efforts.
• Launch a $5-million fund for retrofitting warming centres.
• Install bi-directional EV chargers at critical locations so electrical school buses can use them in cases of outages.
• Partner with the federal government to make the province's electrical grid more resilient, with on-Island power generation and storage, and buried power lines.
• "Enhance partnerships with communities, volunteer fire departments and first responders to ensure effective and appropriate responses." 
• Create a pilot for an on-Island Electrical Generation Project.
• Increase nursery tree production by 30 per cent to 1,300,000 trees per year.

Education, childcare

• Reduce child-care fees to $10 a day by the end of 2023.
• Establish a $20-million infrastructure fund to provide grants to early learning centres to expand and create more spaces.
• Build child-care centres in all new public buildings until wait lists are eliminated.
• Provide grants to encourage private developers to build child-care centres in multi-unit buildings in areas of the province where spaces are needed.
• Designate six more early learning centres before the end of 2023.
• Work with the Early Childhood Development Association to launch a national recruitment campaign to recruit trained early childhood educators.
• Launch a pension plan for early childhood educators before the end of 2023.
• A new junior high school in Stratford.
• Add 100 new positions in the education system.
• Create a $25-million School Infrastructure Revitalization Fund.
• Place automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in all schools.
• Explore the creation of a universal breakfast program with the English and French language school boards.

Social programs

No announcements to date.

Infrastructure and communities

• Establish a $25-million Community Infrastructure Program to assist communities in retrofitting and upgrading key facilities.
• Expand the Atlantic Police Academy and increase specialized training in mental health, addictions and working with marginalized communities.
• Provide $500,000 in funding for Community Legal Information.
• Establish a Community Legal Aid Service.
• Develop an action plan to address cyber-bullying behaviour and promote cyber safety.
• Fund the service costs for community use of schools.
• Invest $10 million in provincial parks.

Governance, leadership