Oh boy a snap election!

Monday August 16th 2021

So the brain Surgeon (he’s not) who was playing the role of our prime minister (he used to be a drama teacher) in his infinite wisdom, he has decided that as Canada is starting into the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic to call a snap federal election.

Ok one might ask why? Or why now? Or any number of questions with regard to calling an elect now. But there is only one reason, and one reason only … it is to try and secure a majority, and lock in four more years of Liberal control.

Let me try to explain for some of our American friends just what the hell is happening here in Canada.

In Canada we have a number of political parties all bidding for our vote, here are the main ones.

• Liberal
• Conservative
• New Democratic
• Bloc Québécois
• Green
• Plus a list of over a dozen other fringe parties

There are a total of 338 parliamentary seats available, so any party winning 170 of the seats has a majority government, and therefore doesn’t need to rely on any other party to pass any legislation. The Liberal government after the last election in 2019 only won 157 seats so they had to rely on the New Democratic Party and their 24 seats to stay in power and pass any legislation. This gave the New Democratic Party a lot of control over Liberal policy, hence this election, to try to regain the majority they held previously.

Each party has their own platform of ideas on how they will make Canada better, the problem is Canada is pretty darn great as it is. So I look for a party that will do the least damage to an already good thing, and I’m still looking because they either spend like drunken sailors (no disrespect to the navy), or they tax us to death. Many make stupid unrealistic promises that they cannot possibly keep, but people still believe them.

The reality is that we have just been through almost eighteen months of financial hell caused by the pandemic, and our present liberal government has tried to buy our way through it. Whether it has worked still remains to be seen, with financial assistance having been offered to almost every one who asked. The only known is that the country will be paying for a long time to the recovery.

And this pandemic has made winners and losers, because if you had a product or service that was in demand you have made out like a bandit, and on the other side if you offered a product or service that was under restriction, than your buisness has suffered greatly. Now there are many that will tell you the government choose the winners and losers, but I don’t agree, it was the pandemic and the spread that decided who and what would happen. The lockdowns and the restrictions were implemented because of the pandemic, yes implementation was done by the government but because of the pandemic.

There are many that will tell you that a minority government is the best kind, because they have to work together, but in reality it is the party that is shoring up the minority government that has the real control. And can at any moment introduce a “no confidence bill” that if the majority of the other parties support will topple the government in power. So at this point in the pandemic a lot of Canadians seem to think the federal government has done a reasonable job of getting us through it, so right now their popularity is quite high, so in this case the liberals who were in power decided to gamble on getting a majority of the seats to be able to control without out another party assisting.

A gamble for sure, but not unexpected. So on the 15th of August the prime minister asked the governor general to dissolve parliament causing this snap election that will be held on September 20th. 36 days only for all the parties to blast us with all their lies and false promises, that is the best part about a Canadian election it’s not a long dragged out affair, still painful enough but at least a short pain.

In Canada we have a pre-set Election Day as with the American system, so the third Monday of October four years after the last election. The timing gets thrown off because of minority governments calling snap elections when they think that they have a good chance of gaining a majority of the seats available. And the campaigning window is usually short between 36 and 50 days not the year long or longer campaigns like we see on American television. But like the American campaigns they are now mostly attack ads, bits of news reels cut and pasted together to manipulate the content into something not even close to the original, but that is today’s way.

So this election is underway and as we drive to town today there were party campaign signs on lawns already, I would like to see a change in government but there is not a real leader in the whole lot of them that I would trust with the countries purse strings. But we have to choose one and then live with that choice for four years if they get a majority, or until they annoy their shoring up party if it is a minority.

There are a couple of brand new leaders in the race this time but some can’t even seem to get their own party to agree with their platform. Part of that is because some of these parties have gone through major restructuring in the past few years, because of infighting in the party. Hence as the election was called some of the parties were in total disarray, and many parties don’t even have candidates for many of the ridings. But all the little parties know that just one seat could have a lot of power with the correct combination of events.

So wish us luck here in Canada, as we choose our fate for the next four years, as there is not any of them I would hire to work for me, and the only possibility is with a party with wild expectations and unrealistic plans.

But get out and vote, but be safe!