Spring election? Let's hope not
For political junkies, the last few weeks have been an exciting time in the nation’s capital, where the air has been thick with rumours of a spring election.
Though nothing in politics is clear-cut, events in recent weeks all seem to indicate Prime Minister Stephen Harper will drop the writ in the not-too-distant future.
While Harper’s minority Conservative government doesn’t have to face the electorate until 2011, everybody and their dog seems to think Harper will try to engineer the fall of his government in hopes of winning a majority at the polls.
This would be the third such election in three years in Canada.
While both the Liberal’s and the Conservatives insist they don’t want an election,
all the signs are in place that we’ll soon have one.
The series of attack ads the Conservative Party has launched on Liberal leader Stephen Dion in recent months were countered last week by Dion’s own public attacks on Harper’s credibility as Prime Minister. Dion was out on the streets of Thunder Bay last Tuesday, blasting Harper.
“Look what he did for the income trusts, for the retirees of Canada and for the western farmers,” Dion said. “He’s unable to keep his word to the provinces about the equalization formula . . . So, it’s a breach of trust between Stephen Harper and the Canadian people.”
As well, the Liberals have declared an “electoral urgency” in Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec, ordering workers in those provinces to nominate candidates immediately in the case of a spring election, a further sign the Liberal’s are getting on a war footing.
And for a group that says it doesn’t want a spring election, the Conservative Party has pumped a lot of money into their new campaign headquarters – a headquarters the Liberal’s are calling a Fear Factory – a state of the art election home base in Ottawa with a TV studio whose soft lighting would be the envy of any Hollywood director. Looks like the Conservatives are getting ready for war too.
After making an announcement Tuesday in Kitchener, Ontario, Harper repeated his party doesn’t want an election, but if the Opposition forces one, the Conservatives are ready. I’m no expert, but I’d say it’s off to the polls we go, and soon. And the people who will be paying for it, as always, is us.
The November 2000 election cost the country $199.7 million. The one in June of 2004 cost $277.8 million. The last one cost more and no doubt the next one will too.
Let’s just hope that somebody wins a majority this time, before the politicians bankrupt the country trying to get elected.
Though nothing in politics is clear-cut, events in recent weeks all seem to indicate Prime Minister Stephen Harper will drop the writ in the not-too-distant future.
While Harper’s minority Conservative government doesn’t have to face the electorate until 2011, everybody and their dog seems to think Harper will try to engineer the fall of his government in hopes of winning a majority at the polls.
This would be the third such election in three years in Canada.
While both the Liberal’s and the Conservatives insist they don’t want an election,
all the signs are in place that we’ll soon have one.
The series of attack ads the Conservative Party has launched on Liberal leader Stephen Dion in recent months were countered last week by Dion’s own public attacks on Harper’s credibility as Prime Minister. Dion was out on the streets of Thunder Bay last Tuesday, blasting Harper.
“Look what he did for the income trusts, for the retirees of Canada and for the western farmers,” Dion said. “He’s unable to keep his word to the provinces about the equalization formula . . . So, it’s a breach of trust between Stephen Harper and the Canadian people.”
As well, the Liberals have declared an “electoral urgency” in Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec, ordering workers in those provinces to nominate candidates immediately in the case of a spring election, a further sign the Liberal’s are getting on a war footing.
And for a group that says it doesn’t want a spring election, the Conservative Party has pumped a lot of money into their new campaign headquarters – a headquarters the Liberal’s are calling a Fear Factory – a state of the art election home base in Ottawa with a TV studio whose soft lighting would be the envy of any Hollywood director. Looks like the Conservatives are getting ready for war too.
After making an announcement Tuesday in Kitchener, Ontario, Harper repeated his party doesn’t want an election, but if the Opposition forces one, the Conservatives are ready. I’m no expert, but I’d say it’s off to the polls we go, and soon. And the people who will be paying for it, as always, is us.
The November 2000 election cost the country $199.7 million. The one in June of 2004 cost $277.8 million. The last one cost more and no doubt the next one will too.
Let’s just hope that somebody wins a majority this time, before the politicians bankrupt the country trying to get elected.
posted by Street Wise Guy | 6:13 PM
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