Bill: what’s with the Tuesday, eh? Just because it’s the day after Thanksgiving? I can’t remember a Canadian election back to ’65 that wasn’t on a Monday. I seem to recall Parliament passing an act establishing the [i]third[/i] Monday in October as the default election day. What happened to that?
Also, this minority government has lasted over 30 months, which seems quite long as Canadian minority governments go. Certainly none of them after ’65 have run that long.
I think the only minority government to last longer was William Lyon Mackenzie’s in the 1920’s. It lasted almost 4 years, but was only 3 seats away from being a majority.
As far as election timing goes, the parliament is dissolved by the Queen (or more typically, her representative, the governor-general), and usually at the request of the parliament. This dissolution is mandatory at I think 5 years, but is typically requested before then. I don’t believe there is a special date required by law, and in this case, it is presumably being scheduled to not conflict with our Thanksgiving.
When there’s a majority gov’t, an election is usually called because the governing party feels that they are at their best chance of winning an election at that moment. When it’s a minority gov’t, the opposition parties sometimes will gang up on the gov’t and vote against it on a “confidence motion”. If such a motion is lost, the gov’t is considered to have lost the confidence of parliament and an election is called whether the governing party wants it or not. Since minority parliaments give lots of power to the opposition, they are typically not long in duration. The opposition parties want another kick at the can so usually try to spring an election whenever they think they have a chance of winning.
In this case, the governing party is prompting the call for an election, so they seem to think that now is the time to increase their representation and improve on the election results of the last election.
Good luck to them, since I don’t think they’ll do much better than last time.
The Tuesday election is because of the long Thanksgiving weekend. People at church today were wondering why election day was set for then.
Harper got a fixed election date passed, the third Monday in the October four years after the previous election date. Note that this could be variable due to minority governments falling before the full four years are up.
The Conservatives are counting on the Bloc Quebecois falling apart in Quebec as the separatist movement loses steam and the fault lines between the old line conservative Union Nationale and the labourite Parti Liberale du Quebec are beginning to show. Rural supporters of the Bloc tend to be more conservative and the urban supporters more socialist (although they are both socialist in comparison to the US political scene.)
In English Canada there hasn’t been a huge backlash against Harper. We tend to vote governments out rather than in based generally on poor ethical behaviour rather than poor government. Trudeau and Mulroney were kicked out for arrogance, Dick Hatfield in NB for trying to smuggle his dope on the Queen’s plane, Chretien for refusing to admit he had made mistakes and so on. Harper has not yet worn out his welcome, although he’s regarded as a pretty cold fish.
The polling to date shows that Harper is within striking distance of a majority government because the Greens are siphoning votes off the Liberals or the Bloc. The NDP are also getting Liberal swing votes. The numbers are not good for anyone in aggregate but when broken down by riding it looks like better for the Conservatives and worse for the Liberals.
It’s telling that the first shot by the Opposition is that Harper broke his own fixed election date law for no good reason, just for opportunism. Should be a fun 6 weeks up here.
Any rumor that the date was to make TV advertising rates higher than normal, due to the concurrent US campaigns? Not sure how or why this would help the Conservatives.
At this point it is just a strong rumour. No one will be shocked if the writ is droped this week for an Oct 14 election, but it’s still not official.
Bill: what’s with the Tuesday, eh? Just because it’s the day after Thanksgiving? I can’t remember a Canadian election back to ’65 that wasn’t on a Monday. I seem to recall Parliament passing an act establishing the [i]third[/i] Monday in October as the default election day. What happened to that?
Also, this minority government has lasted over 30 months, which seems quite long as Canadian minority governments go. Certainly none of them after ’65 have run that long.
Bart,
I think the only minority government to last longer was William Lyon Mackenzie’s in the 1920’s. It lasted almost 4 years, but was only 3 seats away from being a majority.
As far as election timing goes, the parliament is dissolved by the Queen (or more typically, her representative, the governor-general), and usually at the request of the parliament. This dissolution is mandatory at I think 5 years, but is typically requested before then. I don’t believe there is a special date required by law, and in this case, it is presumably being scheduled to not conflict with our Thanksgiving.
When there’s a majority gov’t, an election is usually called because the governing party feels that they are at their best chance of winning an election at that moment. When it’s a minority gov’t, the opposition parties sometimes will gang up on the gov’t and vote against it on a “confidence motion”. If such a motion is lost, the gov’t is considered to have lost the confidence of parliament and an election is called whether the governing party wants it or not. Since minority parliaments give lots of power to the opposition, they are typically not long in duration. The opposition parties want another kick at the can so usually try to spring an election whenever they think they have a chance of winning.
In this case, the governing party is prompting the call for an election, so they seem to think that now is the time to increase their representation and improve on the election results of the last election.
Good luck to them, since I don’t think they’ll do much better than last time.
Stephen+
I guess the strong rumours were true. 🙂
The Tuesday election is because of the long Thanksgiving weekend. People at church today were wondering why election day was set for then.
Harper got a fixed election date passed, the third Monday in the October four years after the previous election date. Note that this could be variable due to minority governments falling before the full four years are up.
The Conservatives are counting on the Bloc Quebecois falling apart in Quebec as the separatist movement loses steam and the fault lines between the old line conservative Union Nationale and the labourite Parti Liberale du Quebec are beginning to show. Rural supporters of the Bloc tend to be more conservative and the urban supporters more socialist (although they are both socialist in comparison to the US political scene.)
In English Canada there hasn’t been a huge backlash against Harper. We tend to vote governments out rather than in based generally on poor ethical behaviour rather than poor government. Trudeau and Mulroney were kicked out for arrogance, Dick Hatfield in NB for trying to smuggle his dope on the Queen’s plane, Chretien for refusing to admit he had made mistakes and so on. Harper has not yet worn out his welcome, although he’s regarded as a pretty cold fish.
The polling to date shows that Harper is within striking distance of a majority government because the Greens are siphoning votes off the Liberals or the Bloc. The NDP are also getting Liberal swing votes. The numbers are not good for anyone in aggregate but when broken down by riding it looks like better for the Conservatives and worse for the Liberals.
It’s telling that the first shot by the Opposition is that Harper broke his own fixed election date law for no good reason, just for opportunism. Should be a fun 6 weeks up here.
Any rumor that the date was to make TV advertising rates higher than normal, due to the concurrent US campaigns? Not sure how or why this would help the Conservatives.