Harper promises law to set (Canadian) election date every four years

[Newsjock]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/26/fixed-vote-060526.html

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his government will introduce a bill next week to establish fixed federal election dates every four years except in cases where the government is defeated in a House of Commons vote or is otherwise "prevented from governing."

The next vote would be in the fall of 2009, he said in a speech in Victoria on Friday.

The proposed bill would abandon an age-old British practice followed in Canada since Confederation. As things stand, a government can carry on for as many as five years without an election — the period set out in the 1982 Constitution — but the prime minister can call an election at any time within that span.

[CanuckAmok]

1. "How to Not Get Anything Done, Ever", by Stephen Harper

It takes a new government in a parliamentray system two years to even get up and running. This is just going to produce more ineffectual government.

And it's going to cost billions we ain't got.

[Posteritatis]

2. Butbutbut the Americans do it!

Ugh. For a bunch of homophobes, the Canadian right wing sure does like wedging itself firmly up the United States' ass.

Fixed election dates are a hideous idea, and would involve discarding a shitload of the parliamentary system just for more populist silliness.

[jackbourassa]

3. I'm beginning to think that this guy does not understand...

...how a parliamentary system works. Why doesn't this fool just move to the US and become an American citizen if he thinks it's so much better than Canada?

[Demeter]

7. Yeah, And We Regret Daily!

The fact that the USA does something no longer means it's a good idea. We threw out good ideas and reality, which is now "Reality"tm and shows only on television, back in the Reagan years.

Please---don't send us Harper! We have too many idiots as it is!

[HuffleClaw]

4. MEEP

is he insane? the public doesn't WANT to be the US. and the other politicians sure as hell doesn't want a fundamental change in our entire political system. next he'll be wanting DIEBOLD voting. god help us all.

[drduffy]

26. out of curisosity I have to ask

have your elections (machines etc.) been on the up and up or have they been 'americanized"

[Posteritatis]

30. Since about 2000, yeah.

While elections were snitty beforehand, since 2000 I've noticed the Conservative campaigns are based almost entirely (or in some cases actually entirely) on personal attacks, ads are taking similar styles to ones in the US, and so on. Nothing gets said in campaigns anymore, and even the party platforms are sometimes little more than attacks.

It's different with provincial elections, at least in this part of the country; I can somewhat like/respect the provincial Tories, though that might be the result of how everyone's handled the minority government in Nova Scotia. I can't stand the federal Conservatives at all, mainly because they're defining themselves and their forms of conduct in Republican terms.

[Pierre Trudeau]

5. to be fair...

Ontario's Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty also mandated fixed election dates for the province.

I'm not sure what I think of it yet, but clearly we can't point fingers solely at Harper on this matter.

[applegrove]

6. Well he is the one with the policy which results in huge powers to

political hacks who then have a two year election cycle instead of 2 months.

I like the two month cycle.

How do you feel about Harper changing Canadian values from "Peace, Order & Good Government" to "something about people should be well rewarded for their luck"?

[Pierre Trudeau]

9. huh???

I'm not sure I understand you.

Yes, I understand that the fixed date proposal will affect how campaigns are planned. But there's no reason to suppose that fixed dates will unfairly benefit either incumbents or opposition. If that's what you're talking about?

Colour me confused.

[applegrove]

12. It will benefit those political organizations with the money. Just like in

the USA. Only those who have the $$$ for two years of television adds, will win.

Why would we do that to ourselves?

[Pierre Trudeau]

16. does this proposal really allow for that?

I haven't heard of any proposed changes to the legal permitted length of an election campaign. Existing laws already prevent the use of campaign ads outside the campaign period. I don't expect that to change with fixed election dates.

Nevertheless, for the reasons you stated, such a proposal must be examined carefully to guard against just such phenomena.

[applegrove]

17. Please! Corporations can put adds on the TV that sell their product

and take a political tune.. or press a meme. Have you not paid any attention to anything going on in the USA?

The campaign is never ending there. And it costs Millions and millions to be a candidate for any national office.

Please...

You do not see the inherent value in our two month system? Where the power to predict the time of an election lies with people who have already been elected democratically to office (be it minority or majority).. instead of with the people who have billions of excess cash to change memes and rework the democracy to favour their narrow elite interests?

Why it is not democratic at all. The system where the corporations and those donating have the upper hand.

You have not noticed that National Post Newspaper runs at a loss year after year? Or that "think tanks" spend less time coming up with new ideas and more time trying to create the memes that will benefit only the very richest?

Why should corporations have any power whatsoever in terms of the election cycle? They should be as surprised as everyone else. And the power should be with the people already democratically elected and given a mandate to run the country.

[Pierre Trudeau]

19. you're mistaking me for someone who agrees with it

You don't have to explain all that to me, I have seen plenty of it over the years. But the fact is, it happens anyway, whether there are fixed election dates or not. Nothing in the news article suggests that the proposal would also change the two-month campaign period and the specific guidelines that apply to that.

Personally, I see no reason to move towards fixed election dates, but the fact is, it's already a done deal in Ontario. So we can't pretend that the evil Harper has cooked up this scheme out of the blue.

[applegrove]

15. huh? huh? huh?.. so often seen on mixed boards where the freepers

are.

[Pierre Trudeau]

18. if I say "huh?" I must be a freeper?

The expression "huh?" is used in a wide variety of places, indeed was frequently used even before the existence of the internet and the aforementioned "mixed boards" you cite. It's shorthand for "I didn't understand what you just said".

If you think I'm a freeper, I must be the only one who's also an old Pearson Liberal eking out a living in the performing arts in Fortress Toronto.

My point all along has been, on what grounds can we critique Harper for his fixed-date election proposal, when McGuinty has already passed a similar fixed-date election law in the province of Ontario, without any grumbling it seems. For the sake of our own credibility, we need to be willing to account for that.

[applegrove]

24. Well you said you didn't understand my fears of political hacks with

money benefitting from a fixed system for elections.. then you say you are an old hand at understanding. Just pointing out that Huh? doesn't move the discussion along. Ask a question if you are not sure.

Reread the whole thread. You are saying you don't understand the point of the post and then showing that you understand it.. again and again.

Surely if you can say Huh? to my language.. surely I can say huh? to your huh?

Freepers on the boards do sound like the the pussycat dolls "huh? huh? huh? huh? huh?" :rofl:

Surely I can point out when the discussion is not being helped along by freeper language.. just as you can rightfully point out when I am and others are "not clear" on the whole background of an issue.

Same rules apply to both of us.

[CanuckAmok]

8. It's at least more feasable on a provincial/municiple level.

But federally, I can't see it as effective.

By the way, I thought you were dead.

[Pierre Trudeau]

11. not sure I see the difference

You might have a point, but I don't immediately see why it would be OK at the municipal and provincial levels, but not federally.

Once again, I am neither defending nor opposing the proposal. My point is that we should avoid casting Harper as the villainous inventor of fixed election dates, when that very proposal was passed some time ago by a Liberal Premier in Ontario, without much fuss at all.


"By the way, I thought you were dead. "

I haunt you still. :D

[CanuckAmok]

22. What I meant was....

That such a system is more logistically feasable on a smaller scale.

And, that said, I don't know if a four year election cycle would be a bad thing at the municipal level, but I don't really know.

[Canuckistanian]

10. The current standard is five years

Although that is not mandated and has actually been exceeded once by Prime Minister Robert Borden during World War One.

I think that this is not an issue that can be ruled on soleley by the governing party, especially by a minority government. He's going to have to get an Act passed for this.

[zann725]

13. Proposes election every 4 years....echoing U.S. Looks like a U.S. puppet,

proposes legislation like one.

[applegrove]

29. 2009? The only year the US political machine is free to help out!

Yes - Harper plans on using many American consultants.. just like he did the last time.

[AnOhioan]

14. As soon as he contracts with Diebold n/t

[rfkrfk]

20. five years is way too long...

unless there would be some way for voters
to show their lack of confidence,
perhaps by registering with some type of 'no confidence' group.

[Posteritatis]

25. Governments rarely last five years anyway. (n/t)

[Tempest]

21. It's the only way he can stay in power past next year

His coalition government will collapse long before 2009.

[Flucius]

23. Not a bad idea

The whole point of fixed election dates is to avoid manipulation of election timing by incumbent parties for partisan advantage. This should ring a bell with the official opposition, who were accused of doing it in 1997. With this party now having major debts to pay off and not having selected a leader, they would be vulnerable to the same thing under the current system. I don't think that fixed election dates always benefit the same party; the governing party can't always control the pace and direction of events, which means that if a major scandal breaks or economic recession hits during an election campaign, this party could suffer at the polls.

[applegrove]

28. Those incumbants to call elections are either the a minority who were

defeated.. or a majority party elected to rule. Why the hell would we want to give the people with money and phony newspapers and phony T.V. adds and so much money to spend they like the two year cycle (cause they can run the opponents into the ground) more power.. than the ... elected government?

I think Harper should put his "money" where his mouth is and call for election around September of 2008 - proving that he wants Canadian elections to be "all Canadian". Proving to us without a doubt that he doesn't want interfearance from outside forces.. cause that wouldn't be democratic.. would it?

[applegrove]

27. What? Not in the same cycle as the U.S.A? Could it be they use the

same political consultants? And are planning to again?