Gentlepundits, start your prognosticating!

Well, the House is *supposed* to get back to business the following week – September 16th – but prorogation could put that off until October or November — or, you know, January, since there is no limit on how much time can elapse between dissolution and a Speech from the Throne. Not legally, that is — it might be politically risky to shut down Parliament for months, though, especially in a minority situation. (I’ve always wondered if, at a certain point, the opposition parties couldn’t band together and trek off to the GG’s place to demand that she drop the writ so as to protect democracy, or something like that.)

Anyway, the by-elections wouldn’t be affected by prorogation, but you’re right that a general election would make the whole exercise spectacularly moot. Then again, the PM *had* to call Westmount before tomorrow, and the other two would have come due in early September anyway, so I guess he figured it just made more sense to bundle them together.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Godfrey’s riding, though, since technically, he has until next February to call that one.

I have no doubt that you are entirely and completely right on this one — I knew it would be close, but didn’t think to count backwards from byelection date.

So — huh. I’m guessing that means no representation for Don Valley voters for the next six months or so, since it seems unlikely that the PM would go out of his way to hold a single byelection before the deadline expires (and there may well be a general election before then) — particularly if the Liberals are likely to hang onto the seat.

If he’d wanted to tweak the timeline so as to allow all four to be held on the same day, he could have set the other three byelections for September 22 — or even September 29.

There is precedent against the GG calling an election without being advised to by the PM, and an example of what happens to a government that creates such a situation.

The Progessive Conservatives under Grant Devine tried pulling such a stunt in Saskatchewan about 20 years ago. They knew they were going to get destroyed if an election was called, so they dissolved the legislature and ruled by order of council past the five year mark.

The Lieutenant Governor was repeated asked by opposition & the general population to call an election without being asked by the premier, but was reluctant to do so as it would set the precedent of a symbolic head of state overriding an elected government. The PC’s eventually called an election after about a month of illegal government, but things were seriously tense during that time. A few more weeks and we might have seen a return to 1930′s style prairie political violence. The PC party has not run a serious candidate in Saskatchewan since.

Besides, would there be any practical difference between the current government sitting and not sitting, what with how both Conservatives & Liberals are behaving? It seems the processes of governing the country that aren’t already dictated by the PMO may be shifting to the court system.

I live in Guelph and I just got back from a drive around town. There are Tom King signs all over, he’s quick off the mark, and only one other political sign which was Liberal candidate.

It’s interesting how Dion is spinning the by-election by saying telling voters to “send Prime Minister Stephen Harper a strong message that they don’t like the way he is running the country.” In fact the seats are the Liberal’s seats to lose, seeing as they hold two of them.

The Tories have been very realistic in suggesting they don’t expect to make any headway in these ridings, and only consider Guelph to be a long-shot. As Ryan Sparrow said, “Anything short of two Liberal wins and one Bloc win with margins equal to or greater than 2006 will be failures for both Stephane Dion and Gilles Duceppe.”

The only wildcard here is how the Green Shift campaigning will impact the voters over the next month. While most people know little about it now, they will likely hear a lot more about it in the weeks to come.

Wayne Yes, opposing Bill C-61 is an obvious vote winner here in Guelph, what with all the hippies and students who are against having to pay for things.

NDP must think he has a chance because I have been getting 1-2 things in the mail a week for the last 6 weeks about King/Layton and have received nothing from any of the other parties.

The latest item in the mail points out the evils of ‘big banks’, Cons who are selling off parts of our universal health care to highest bidder, George Bush’s ‘adventures’ in Middle East and the money going to oil and gas companies who make the air worse. And to top it off, I am told to not support politicians who ‘fear change, who are afraid of the future’.

I am constantly amazed when I read that Conservative candidate has a chance. I am libertarian/conservative and I sometimes feel like I am the only in town. I know more people who identify themselves as communist than I do any other political ideology.