The stars are now aligning for a federal election this fall.
A senior Conservative official has been quoted as saying Prime Minister Stephen Harper is looking at dropping the writ as early as September 2 or 5. My bet is it will be September 5 because that’s the day of the Free Press company golf tournament. I wonder if I can get wireless access from the rough (I likely won’t be on the fairway) when the call is made to post the story on our website? It’s all my fault. I’m sure I saw MP Dick Harris rummaging around our office the other day, noticing the golf tournament poster, chagrined that it is a company only tournament and he, being a great golfer, wasn’t invited, and then slyly suggested to Harper that September 5 is a good day to call an election.
Yup, that’s how it happened. So you read it here first – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will call an election on September 5 … or Sept. 2 … or some other day.
Seriously though, it seems Harper is bent on calling the election in the next couple of weeks, putting the election sometime in mid-October. Not bad timing. It’s only August now and already the stores have their Halloween stuff out. Okay, I haven’t quite gotten serious yet, so here we go.
Harper has to call an election pretty soon if, for no other reason, to stop that inane “fish or cut bait” reference to the Liberals. He’s used it so many times that it’s starting to apply to him. It’s been interesting to watch though. While Harper has been rattling the election cage, Harris has been downplaying an election call.
The Conservatives have been complaining that they cannot effectively govern and are calling on the opposition parties to either let them govern or call an election. It’s an ironic call because the Harper government has outlasted most minority governments in this country. And even though the Conservatives have not brought forward legislation it wants to because it knows it won’t get through parliament, the country hasn’t fallen apart. The economy is still ticking along fairly well, things are moving, and Harris and fellow MP Jay Hill are handing out cheques left, right, and centre.
While the current minority government hasn’t worked for the governing party, the question Canadians should be asking is whether it has worked for them. Is Canada on the brink of dysfunction, as the prime minister would have us believe? I don’t think so. One of the beauties of our system is that we can have a minority government. The business of government still operates in a minority government. The business of politics doesn’t. And that’s what the complaint is about.
It’s not a complaint limited to Harper and the Conservatives. Every political leader and party wants a majority government. Majority governments mean the governing party can ram through whatever legislation they want. Just look at B.C. following the 2001 election when the Liberals held every seat in the Legislature but two.
A majority government runs unfettered through its term. A minority government, however, tiptoes very carefully through a usually shorter term.
So, while all leaders tell you how horrible another minority government would be, ask yourself how horrible the current ones have been.
Minority governments may not be as effective as majority governments, as far as the politicians are concerned, but they are more accountable, as far as the electorate is concerned.