Poll suggests tiny P.E.I. could elect Canada’s first Green government

Province House in downtown Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, is the seat of P.E.I.'s provincial legislature. Photo by Istockphoto /Getty

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The Green Party, at both the federal and provincial level, seems poised to remain the perennial also-ran in Canadian politics — with one exception. Numbers from Narrative Research suggest that Prince Edward Island could be on its way to a Green government in the next provincial election, set for October 2027.

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The latest Atlantic Quarterly survey from Narrative Research has the province’s Green Party with 54 per cent of the vote, a 32-point increase from the 2023 election that saw an overwhelming Progressive Conservative majority, with that party holding 22 of the island’s 27 legislative seats.

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The PC party, meanwhile, has just 18 per cent in the polls, down from 56 per cent in the last election. The province’s Liberal party has jumped by nine points to 26 per cent, while the New Democrats are at just three per cent, down from five per cent in 2023.

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Narrative Research CEO Margaret Brigley told National Post that voter dissatisfaction is the driving force behind the numbers, which are based on a small sample size of 147 respondents in the province of about 180,000 people.

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“It’s really concentrated around health care, as well as debt, weak leadership, and a few other things,” she said. “That level of dissatisfaction has really translated into a sense of frustration … voters are clearly expressing frustration with the status quo and that’s translating into looking what options they might have.”

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The party leaders also produced strong polling numbers, she added.

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“Matt McFarlane, who’s the leader of the Green Party, is most preferred by a quite significant margin,” she said. “Fifty-one per cent of individuals told us they would most prefer Matt McFarlane (as) premier, and that compares to just 11 per cent naming Rob Lantz, who’s the leader of the PC party (and the current premier), and 10 per cent for Rob Mitchell, who is the leader of the Liberal Party.”

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MacFarlane, who has led the province’s Green Party since June 2025, told National Post that the poll numbers were both encouraging and humbling.

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“I think the polls reflect the fact that islanders see the Green Party as being a common sense party, a party that listens to islanders, brings those concerns forward and gets the work done,” he said.

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Prince Edward Island Green Party Leader Matt MacFarlane stands to become premier if the Greens win in the next election. Photo by Stu Neatby /Postmedia

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Curtis Fric, founder and managing director of research firm Polling Canada, said the small sample size means the data “should be taken with a larger pile of salt than we’d otherwise take with a given poll.”

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But, he added, a sample of that size would produce a margin of error of about seven or eight per cent, 19 times out of 20, “which still means the Greens would be ahead on this given poll.”

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Brigley noted that it wasn’t even standard Green Party policies that were driving voters to them.

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“When we look at the issues that are most important to islanders, it’s not environmental concerns (or) policy initiatives that are really strongly aligned with the Green Party historically,” she said. “It’s health care, and it’s the cost of living and the cost of groceries, followed by housing. So it’s not what I would consider to be the traditional Green Party policy initiatives.”

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MacFarlane said he and others in the party have strived to make the Greens “a multi-policy, multi-issue party,” adding: “Yes, environment and ecological issues are a concern here in Prince Edward Island as they are everywhere, but our approach to politics … has always been to listen to the concerns of islanders and bring those concerns forward, not come in with a political ideology and impose it from above.”