King says his new cabinet will have 'a record number' of women

Premier Dennis King says Prince Edward Island's next provincial cabinet will have a "record number" of women.

For context, that means at least three female members, according to research by the legislature's non-partisan administrator.

In an interview with CBC's Power & Politics Wednesday, King said that with 22 out of the 27 MLAs elected in Monday's general election being Progressive Conservatives, he will have a talented pool of MLAs from which to draw when selecting his ministers — and a lot of them are women.

"Building cabinet is difficult at the best of times, and it's going to be really challenging this time," he said. "I know I'm really excited to have six extremely capable women in our PC caucus who will do a great job, and I'm looking forward to get to work with them." 

Joey Jeffrey, the clerk of the Legislative Assembly of P.E.I., told CBC News Thursday that going back to 1999, "as far as we can tell, there have never been more than two women in cabinet at the same time."

He added: "There have been several instances when three women served in the cabinet of one premier, but not all at the same time."

Compton, Jameson only women before call

King's most recent cabinet had 10 members, including himself. Darlene Compton and Natalie Jameson were the only women.

This last provincial election saw a record number of female candidates on the ballot but only seven ended up being elected: one Green and six Progressive Conservatives. 

That number is unchanged from the 2019 election, but six are now on the government side of the house, a record number for the Progressive Conservatives.

That would mean it's easier for a PC cabinet to come closer to gender parity this time around. 

The P.E.I. Coalition of Women has previously called out the lack of female representation in King's Executive Council, saying it's among the lowest in the country.

King said he's committed to appointing more women.

"We have a lot of difficult decisions to make over the next number of days as to how we build a new cabinet. But I'm very, very grateful that we have such wonderful talent and depth that we can add. So I hope our cabinet will have a mixture of experience, of new blood," he said.

"We will have many more women in the cabinet and also try to balance geography across the province — which we're better able to do this time than we were last time."