JWL — Pity.

I like elections. I’d enjoy having two big ones to watch this fall — McCain/Obama and Harper/Dion.

Ben

I was watching Question Period a few weeks and Rosemary Thompson was one of the guest hosts. She suggested, in all seriousness, that there won’t be an election this fall in Canada because no one would be paying attention because everyone is watching Obama. I thought what she was suggesting was absurd but provided an insight about Rosemary. I too would like an election this fall, I am convinced Dion will finally decide to bring down the government and there will be an election before December.

Interesting discussion but misses the esssential point. Harper is not running against Dion, he is running against Duceppe.

Dion’s biggest failure as Liberal leader has been his inability to engineer a Liberal come-back in Quebec against the Bloc. Harper has placed CPC as the federalist default option in Quebec. Roberval and St-Hyacinthe-Bagot byelections showed the trend, St-Lambert byelection should confirm the trend in the ridings surrounding Montreal.

Politically, Harper needs more time to build up his organization in Quebec before he takes on the Bloc. Over time the Bloc seems to be weakening (is it me or does it seem that the Bloc isn’t making much of an effort in St-Lambert?) while the CPC gets stronger. By October 2009 election, CPC will be in a strong position versus the Bloc and will be competitive all across the province, including the francophone parts of the island of Montreal if the Liberal decline among francophones in la metropole continues.

As to an early election, I don’t see how this would serve CPC interests in Quebec. Nor do I see why the Bloc would support the Liberals in defeating the CPC when the result will be the loss of many Bloc seats to the Conservatives.

I believe that Bloc will prop up Harper government if the Liberals regain their courage and seek to defeat the government on non-confidence. The election will be in October 2009, just as PM Harper planned it.

The Canadian (Toronto) MSM should temper a little their obsession with Dion and the Liberals and report more on the Bloc and what is happening Quebec. Quebec is the only place right now where the politics is actually interesting (and shifting).

RE: Scandals – I don’t know about the posters on this site, but outside of Ottawa and more specifically the political groupies, few, if anyone, cares about what the ethics committee is or is not doing. All most people see is rude politicans from all sides trying to score points when they really should be enjoying the summer holidays. Will they heat up in the fall, probably not because people see them as partisan actions and unless you are deep into every policical move of every politican, most people could care less. I know none of my friends, neighbours, work colleagues, family members etc care one bit about the ‘scandals’. A fall election? only if the opposition parties work together to bring down the governmnt and while the Liberals may (or may not) be keen, not sure if the Bloc is or the NDP. Once the US election starts to move into full gear (mid-September) I doubt any party will want to go to an election; maybe the winter? – that didn’t work out so well for the Liberals last time since you need a great ground machine to counter Xmas and winter conditions; spring is next – maybe but by that time we are too close to a scheduled election anyway so what would be the point.

If an election is called and Dion wins, will he have to excuse himself from any bilateral negotiations with France because of conflict of interest?
He is a French citizen and holds a dual passport. Let’s see, a Quebecer and citizen of France negotiating for Canada, with France. Vive le Québec libre! Ala President Degaulle. Funny how the MSM sees no problem with this. If Harper had a cat born in the US they would be screaming that Harper was negotiating with the US and his Bush buddy in bad faith.
I swear the MSM would be thrilled with the destruction of Canada, as it is, if it would allow them to sell more advertising through more blaring headlines.

Doowleb-
That goes beyond cynical into borderline paranoid. Dion has proven himself to be an ardent federalist. Just because someone is a francophone or a Quebecer doesn’t automatically equal a separatist.

Bill Greenwood, I am confident that fellow commenters will not accuse me of being an enemy to Harper or the Tories. With that preamble, I must correct you on your main point that the Tories were just accounting for their own money.

I wish that were so.

Among the many poisonous things the Liberals have done to honest taxpayers over the years, the recurrent per vote funding formula, and the reimbursement of campaign expenses, ranks right up there. If you as a candidate get a certain minimum percentage of the vote, the Canadian taxpayer refunds an insane proportion of your expenses, subject to legislated limits. National parties also get refunds for national-wide campaign expenses.

Last election, the Tories wanted to exercise their right to free speech by advertising, but they would be overspending their limits to qualify for funding. Some riding candidancies were not at the limits, so a little creative accounting allegedly took place. A “regional” advertisement would run with the fine print “authorized by the official agent so-and-so for Candidate X” rather than “authorized by the official agent for the Conservative Party.” So regional ad buys could have expenses split up among various participating candidates’ expense budgets. The expenses appear to have been twinned with transfers of identical or near-identical amounts of funds from the national war-chest (hence the derisive label “in-and-out”).

How did Elections Canada come to learn that the Tories might be pinning not-so-local expenses to local riding campaigns? The Tories told them, because the parties and the candidates submit receipts and are entitled to our money according to the legislated limits. Elections Canada refused to reimburse local candidates for those expenses, saying those national expenses were padding the local budgets that had the room for it, and otherwise would have pushed national party spending over the allowed limit. The Tories are suing Elections Canada to get that ruling reversed and to get their hands on our money (the campaign expenses rebate), just like all parties have applied for rebates for their expenses.

So it’s not true that we are dealing with “their own legitimately raised funds.” If that’s all the parties could get their hands on, the Liberals would have already thrown in the towel, declared bankruptcy, stiffed their creditors, and tried to register as a different party to run for office claiming responsible management of the taxpayers’ trust.

We are, in fact, dealing with how much the federal treasury should be refunding a political party for its advertising expenses for the last campaign.

Take away that stupid reimbursement program, and we have none of this nonsense to begin with.

Which somewhat reinforces my point- If the Tory “money laundering” (which it seems to have been) was wholly unethical, why in God’s name did the Tories tell Elections Canada that was what they had done? I honestly think that the law is probably poorly written- too much grey legalese- and that some of the shuffle was an intentional challenge in order to make the whole thing more transparent. The best solution- eliminate tax funding of political parties. Keep the current finance laws but eliminate the public subsidy portion. I also maintain my position that this is a long, long ways from the kind of wholesale corruption that is the heart and soul of the Libranos.

Another interpretation is that the Tory brain trust thinks that they are smarter than the rest of the world.
There’s been a like-minded group in Washington with the same problem.

What I would find hilarious to watch: Vulcan chess boy musing about calling an election, turning out to be the biggest federal political head-fake of the 21st century so far.

Make noises about calling an election. Try to look good by meeting all the other leaders. Other leaders refuse to agree to cooperate but also lambaste you for making noises. Then: DON’T cross the street to advise dissolution, rather, go and re-open Parliament and get to work. October 2009, after all. Opposition parties, spooked into preparing for a nation-wide election, thoroughly unprepared for a return to work, collapse the House into non-confidence at the first opportunity, creating the election Harper wanted in the first place, but now without the hypocrisy charge, thereby permitting his heretofore dozen critics at Macleans.ca to swoon in adoration for having respected his stated intent in the fixed-date legislation.

“You see, Canada? I tried. These boobs said we shouldn’t have an election right away, and look what they just did, only now several weeks later so that the weather can suck for polling day. I did my best to respect the fixed-date law, really I did. It even looked like I would have to ask the GG to dissolve early, in spite of the good intentions of the law. Well, it looks like my instinct was correct. The opposition just achieved what they so forcefully whined they did not want. And THEY expect the privilege of your confidence on election day?”

Wait.. you agree with yourself? Are there multiple people posting under your moniker, or did you intend to sock-puppet and forgot to change your name?

And to be honest, because that scenario doesn’t break any laws or promises (the opposition parties never said that Harper’s law meant anything, in fact, they voiced that as a concerna bout it) it’ll receive practically nothing for a bounce.

Really, the only reason the election date is a bit of a bug-a-boo is because of the lengths the conservatives went to proclaim how their legislation was a triumph for democracy by preventing a PM from going to the GG whenever convenient. It’s not the calling of the election that’s the problem, it’s the hypocrisy in doing so after all the crowing.

I have been the only person I know floating this idea so far, but i also think it helps the Liberals because they can say that harper has explicitly admitted he can’t competently run a minority government, but expects only to return a minority in the next election. I don’t get that.

“TT, no sock puppetry, no multiple posting, just a little (attempt at) humour, so that anyone who caught it would chuckle about somebody agreeing with himself.”

Frankly, I don’t believe you. Smacks of the radio phone-in show ads from ‘ordinary Canadians’.