5 minute guide to “are we having an election or what?”

As you may know, an overly dramatic duel is currently taking place in the House of Commons over whether or not Canadians are going to have to put up with a fall election.

Right now we’re still in the “maybe, maybe not” stage.  Here’s a short version of why that is.

We all know that just before the fall sitting of Parliament started, the Liberals decided to stop agreeing with the Conservatives. This means that the government now relies on either the Bloc Quebecois or the NDP to prop them up during confidence motions owing to their status as a minority government.  A confidence motion is any motion which can trigger the dissolution of Parliament by a vote against the side the government is taking and, under Prime Minister Harper at least, a lot of the motions that the government tables are motions of this kind.  The government needs to carry confidence motions with a majority in order to avoid ‘falling.’  The consequences of a government’s fall can play out in a couple of different ways. In Canada, it almost always ends up being an election.

Elections happen 28 days after the Governor General dissolves Parliament & ‘drops the writ,’ which would happen almost immediately after a lost confidence motion.

Up to this point of the current Parliament, the NDP & Bloc have staunchly opposed everything the Conservatives have done, so, if their behavior had remained consistent, the government should have fallen at the first confidence motion after the Liberals decided to stop supporting the Conservatives.  The first confidence motion of the fall sitting of Parliament was on Friday.  The Liberals voted against it, but the Bloc and the NDP both sided with the Conservatives.

Election averted.

The NDP have agreed to support the Conservatives until some changes to EI are passed – which should take us to at least the 28th, depending on how quickly those changes go through committee, and may actually take us all the way to the end of the fall sitting.  Either way, after that motion is passed, it’s anybody’s guess as to what the NDP will do.  And, if the Conservatives push their luck by trying to move controversial legislation prior to the EI changes, they might fall anyway, as the NDP support is conditional.

At the moment, it looks kind of like there IS NOT going to be a fall election.  Except…here’s the thing:  if the Opposition parties want to have an election, they need to have it before Christmas or wait until this time next year.  December (Christmas), January (the Queen may be visiting! Also, the Olympics are almost here!) and February (the Olympics!) are all out for election triggering. And unless something surprising happens, the Conservatives are going to be ahead in the polls in the spring because of the Queen! the Olympics! and the government usually getting a bump during budget passage season.  Summer’s out too – summers are generally a terrible time to have an election and, if the Queen does not come before or during the Olympics, it’s likely that she’ll come in the summer sometime.  That means that now or this time next year are the smart choices for an election.

If a fall election does happen at this point, my guess is that the likeliest date for the voting to take place  is sometime between October 29 and November 5 (and I can explain why I guess that, but it’s even more boring than the rest of this already is).

The actual verdict?  No one really knows if an election will be triggered.  If an election does happen, we get no notice at all on the campaign period and 28 days’ notice on the opening of voting polls.

That’s my 2 cents, anyway.

-A