No good reason for early federal election By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Jun. 28, 2021

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/06/2021 (1180 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Infrastructure and Communities Minister Catherine McKenna’s announcement Monday that she will not seek re-election in Ottawa Centre offered further evidence of the ruling Liberal Party preparing for an early election call. Her retirement could offer the Liberals of Ottawa Centre the privilege of choosing former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney as their parliamentary candidate.

The party on Friday appointed seasoned campaign manager Azam Ishmael as its campaign director. All parties adjusted House of Commons procedures to allow retiring MPs to make farewell speeches before the House rose for its summer recess on Friday. The farewell speech of Nunavut NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq proved to be a humdinger, blasting Parliament and its security service for treating her as an alien presence during her two-year term.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers have lately taken to complaining about the current Parliament and its obstruction of his minority government. Most recently, they were offended because the opposition parties and the Speaker combined to blame the government for refusing to disclose reasons for abruptly removing two leading scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. A majority government could more easily ignore opposition demands for disclosure.

Recent opinion surveys suggest the Liberals and the New Democrats could pick up seats if an election were held today, while the Bloc Quebecois would hold its present 32 Quebec seats and the Conservatives could lose ground. It is far from certain that the Liberals would win the 170 seats needed for a majority in the Commons.

Even if Mr. Trudeau once again fell short of a majority, a loss of seats by the Conservatives would lead to a fresh bloodletting in the official Opposition party — probably a change of leader, perhaps a change in policy. Support from the NDP, and occasionally from the Bloc, has allowed Mr. Trudeau to govern with only mild resistance from the Conservatives. His most ardent critics — the Conservative premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario — have had little impact on his policy or on his standing in public esteem.

The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed Mr. Trudeau and his ministers to address the nation on television every day of the week and has relegated opposition parties to the shadows. Parliament has been reduced to little more than a video conference in which the most remarkable events have been one naked appearance and one bathroom performance by William Amos, who was then a parliamentary secretary in Mr. Trudeau’s government.

The country is not asking for an election. Mr. Trudeau’s complaints about parliamentary obstruction are without merit. He and his ministers are so isolated from criticism on account of the pandemic emergency that they have forgotten what democratic government feels like and how accountability ordinarily works.

The main reason for an election this year is that the Liberals smell Conservative blood in the water. The urge for a feeding frenzy lies in a part of the Liberal brain that is inaccessible to rational thought.

An election in current conditions would probably give us a Parliament much like the one we have now, but with a weakened Conservative opposition cast into fresh turmoil. That may serve a narrow partisan interest of Mr. Trudeau and his colleagues, but it will not improve Canada or its political life. It may be too late now to ask them to think again about what they are doing. They should at least come up with a valid reason for this election nobody is asking for.