Peter Bevan-Baker

Peter Bevan-Baker (born 3 June 1962) is a Scottish Canadian politician. He is the leader of the Green Party of Prince Edward Island and a member of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island representing Kellys Cross-Cumberland. He previously stood as a candidate for the Green Party of Ontario and the Green Party of Canada. Bevan-Baker is a dentist by profession as well as being an active writer, musician and public speaker.

He holds a Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Glasgow. He immigrated to Canada in 1985, living in Lewisporte, Newfoundland and then Brockville, Ontario before settling in Prince Edward Island in 2003. He became a Canadian citizen in 1992.

Bevan-Baker joined the Green Party of Canada in 1992, and has run as a candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in the elections of 1993, 1997 in the riding of Leeds—Grenville and provincially in 1995 in the riding of Leeds-Grenville in Ontario, and 2008 and 2011 in Malpeque, PEI.

In 1997, he ran on a platform that advocated establishing a Genuine Progress Index (GPI). This was proposed to replace the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the standard measure for assessing national progress with an index that gauged the health and well-being of people, communities and eco-systems. Though not elected from 1997 to 2001, he forged an alliance with Liberal MP Joe Jordan to draft the Canada Well-Being Measurement Bill (C-268), which incorporated many of the central tenets of the GPI. The bill received first reading on 14 February 2001, but did not become law. The Bill remains as one of the greenest pieces of legislation ever to reach the floor of the Canadian House of Commons.

Bevan-Baker has also run three times as a candidate in provincial elections in Ontario, and on Prince Edward Island in the riding of Kelly’s Cross-Cumberland in 2007 and 2011.

In 2012 he spearheaded a coalition from a broad spectrum of Islanders against a project known as “Plan B”, which involved rerouting a portion of the Trans Canada Highway through a section of ancient Acadian forest, citing negative environmental and fiscal implications for the province.

In 2015, Bevan-Baker was elected to the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly with 54% of the vote, winning the first-ever seat for the Green Party of Prince Edward Island. It was his tenth attempt at winning a seat. He is the third member of a provincial Green Party to win a seat in a provincial legislature in Canada, following Andrew Weaver in British Columbia and David Coon in New Brunswick.