Dennis King

Early Life and Education

Dennis King is the third of eight children born to Catherine “Cattie” Stevens and Lionel MacKenzie King. He has three brothers and four sisters. King grew up in the Kings County township of Georgetown Royalty. His father, who died in 1996, was a labourer who worked in a shipyard, hauled garbage and sold seaweed by the truckload. Dennis King graduated from Montague Regional High School in 1990.

Journalism Career

Dennis King’s first full-time job was as a reporter for the Eastern Graphic, a weekly newspaper based in Montague and owned by Island Press Limited. He was editor of the same company’s biweekly publication, Island Farmer. He also edited Atlantic Fish Farming, a trade publication.

King was a news reporter for one year with radio station CFCY. He later became a regular on a CBC Radio political panel with publisher Paul MacNeill and others. King also did livestream play-by-play for the Panthers, the men’s hockey team of the University of Prince Edward Island.

Communications Career

After Pat Binns of the Progressive Conservatives won the 1996 provincial election, Dennis King was hired as a communications officer for the transportation and public works department. He later held a similar post in the department of development and technology. King eventually became an executive assistant and communications director for the premier, a job that ended with Binns’ defeat in the election of 28 May 2007.

In July 2007, King became director of communications and business development for the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of PEI. Six years later, he formed King Strategy Group, a marketing and public relations consultancy. Before taking a leave to enter politics, he served as executive director of the PEI Seafood Processors Association, a nonprofit organization promoting the island’s third-largest industry.

Author and Storyteller

Dennis King made his stage debut as a storyteller at the Festival of Small Halls in 2014. He then became a founding member of The Four Tellers with David Weale, Gary Evans and Alan Buchanan. The quartet’s performances made them one of the most popular acts on the island.

King has self-published two books of humorous short stories: The Day They Shot Reveen (2016) and The Legend of Bubby Stevens (2017).

Political Career

In September 2018, James Aylward resigned as leader of the Progressive Conservative party of PEI after less than a year in the post. During his tenure, the party lagged in third place in the polls behind the governing Liberals and upstart Greens.

Dennis King was the second of five candidates to enter the PC leadership race. He launched his campaign at the Kings Playhouse in his hometown with a call for collaboration: “We’re too small as a province to focus only on what divides us.” King won on the second count on 9 February 2019.

2019 Election

Dennis King had been leader of the Progressive Conservative party for less than seven weeks when Liberal  premier Wade MacLauchlan called an election on 26 March 2019. It was the first three-party race in island history. The Green Party was popular in the polls and posed a strong challenge to the traditional ruling parties, the Liberals and PCs.

With the slogan, “It’s about people,” the PCs campaigned on a platform of $15 million in tax cuts to “put money back in the hands of Islanders.” The party also promised community-based preschool programs as part of a series of policies dedicated to the well-being of children. Other promises included the creation of a new land bank to assist the farming industry, the creation of a dedicated fisheries ministry and the introduction of beer and wine sales in convenience stores. At the start of the campaign, King said that if his party won and broke its promises, “kick us the hell out because we don’t deserve to be there.” King was in favour of mixed-member proportional representation, which was the subject of a referendum held concurrently with the election. (See also Electoral Reform in Canada.)

On 23 April 2019, the PCs won 12 seats, two short of a majority. King won his riding in Brackley-Hunter River. The Greens under Peter Bevan-Baker took eight seats, while the governing Liberals were reduced to six, with the premier losing his riding. Notably, the Conservatives didn’t win any seats in the province’s two cities of Charlottetown and Summerside. The party also had fewer female candidates (only 26 per cent) than either the Greens or Liberals and elected only one woman to the legislature.

On 15 July 2019, PC candidate Natalie Jameson won a deferred election in the Charlottetown-Hillsborough Park riding. Her victory brought the party’s total to 13 seats in the legislature. Jameson became the second woman in the PC caucus and the only member of the party elected in a city.

First Term as Premier

Before being sworn in as premier, Dennis King mused about the possibility of including members of other parties in his cabinet. In the end, however, he named an all-Conservative, eight-member cabinet. In addition to his responsibilities as premier, King served as minister of intergovernmental affairs, Indigenous relations and Acadian and francophone affairs.

King’s first term as premier proved to be especially eventful and challenging. It was bookended by two of the most powerful and damaging storms in the province’s history: post-tropical storms Dorian in September 2019 and Fiona in September 2022. King’s term was also dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in March 2020. King drew praise for his government’s handling of the pandemic. A Leger poll conducted at the end of December 2020, which asked people to assess the performance of Canada’s premiers in various categories, placed King at the top of almost every category. He also scored an eight out of 10 when people were asked to rate such qualities as trustworthiness, transparency, communication and compassion.

Heading into the provincial election on 3 April 2023, which King called early, King and his party had to do damage control after King appeared to support anti-trans comments made by a citizen on the campaign trail. King responded by apologizing and pledging support for the 2SLGBTQ+ community. He also defended the actions of PC candidate Donalda Docherty, who shared anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on Twitter. But the PCs emerged victorious on election day, winning a majority government with 22 seats and nearly 60 per cent of the popular vote.

Second Term as Premier

Dennis King and the PCs were noted for a complex — though some would say contradictory — approach to fighting climate change. On the one hand, they became a notable producer of wind energy and pledged to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, a decade earlier than the federal government’s target date. Breaking ranks with other Conservatives, King called climate change “the seminal issue of our time.” On the other hand, however, King protested federal climate policy by joining the other Atlantic premiers in a unified campaign against carbon pricing.

In early February 2025, King and the other Atlantic premiers met with government officials in Washington, DC. Their goal was to try and stop the looming tariff war instigated by US president Donald Trump. However, shortly after that visit, on 20 February, King abruptly resigned as leader of the PEI PCs and as an MLA. Explaining his resignation at a press conference, King mentioned “the threats of tariffs, the threats to our country’s sovereignty and economic uncertainty, and realizing that those aren’t going to be simple issues that are going to disappear in a few days or weeks. They will require the attention, every minute of every day for the next four years.” He also said, “I think politics is changing… and I think some of that change of approach might be easier for the party without me at the front of it.” King’s resignation was effective at 1:00 p.m. on 21 February 2025.

Personal Life

Dennis King married Jana Hemphill in 1999. They celebrated their 20th anniversary the day after the 2019 election. Hemphill is a PEI-born writer and journalist who now owns and operates Storybook Adventures, a 24-acre farm that offers horse-riding lessons and boarding facilities. The farm in Brookfield is also home to cows, sheep, chickens, llamas, donkeys and other animals. Hemphill is also director of the registered charity Sadie’s Place, which aids unwanted and neglected horses.

The couple has three children, daughter Camdyn King and sons Callum King and Jacob “Jake” Hemphill.

Awards and Honours

• Best feature story, Canadian Community Newspaper Awards (2015)