XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ab.politics   
   XPost: sk.politics, man.politics, mtl.general   
   From: puela@nyet.ca   
      
     January 16, 2015 - By Andrew Coyne / National Post   
      
      
   Stephen Harper ignores fixed election date law and no one seems to care   
      
      
   This is astonishing - a measure not only of the corrupting effects of power but   
   of how the rest of us have been corrupted along with it   
      
      
   Oh for the love of God, people, would you give it a rest?  I have just ploughed   
   through what I would conservatively estimate is the four hundredth column I   
   have seen speculating on the date of the next election.  The recipe is always   
   the same.  Here are the reasons many people think the election will be in the   
   fall.  However, here is why I, Pundit,  predict the prime minister will go in   
   the spring.  Or, in the alternative, the reverse.   Season to taste.   
      
   Why this has become such an obsession with my fellow thumbsuckers is hard to   
   fathom since, unless you are privy to the prime minister's innermost thoughts,   
   it is inherently unknowable. Mind, that's true of the future generally, which   
   is why such speculative pieces are usually pointless, not least since there are   
   no consequences for being wrong - for by the time the future arrives to   
   confound it the column will be, conveniently, in the past, never to be   
   mentioned again.  Or as Dan Gardner, author of Future Babble, puts it, "heads I   
   win, tails you forget we made a bet."   
      
   What's interesting about all this election speculation, pointless as it is, is   
   the underlying premise: that the date of the next election is in fact open to   
   question.  By law, that is not supposed to be the case.  By law - An Act to   
   amend the Canada Elections Act, S.C. 2007, c. 10 - the next election date is   
   set in stone: October 19, 2015.   So the real, unspoken premise is this: that   
   the prime minister does not feel bound to follow the law - his own law, as it   
   happens.   
      
        If the spirit and purpose of the law is utter meaninglessness - then what   
   on earth was the point?   
      
   Not only does he not feel bound by it, but neither do the rest of us seem   
   inclined to insist that he should.  We have all somehow come to accept that it   
   is perfectly normal, even acceptable, for the government - the government! - to   
   disobey the law if it feels like it, as if the laws that are binding upon the   
   rest of us were not binding upon the governments that pass them.   
      
   This is surely an astonishing state of affairs, in a democracy, a measure not   
   only of the corrupting effects of power but of how the rest of us have been   
   corrupted along with it.   
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   Experience, that is, has taught us to expect no better, and expecting no   
   better, we can hardly be outraged to find our expectations are confirmed.   
   Recall that this prime minister has once before defied his own legislation, in   
   calling the election of October 14, 2008 - more than a year in advance of the   
   date fixed in law.   He paid no apparent price for it then.   Why would he now?   
      And if he expects to pay no price for it, why would he not consider it?   
   Which being so, why would we not spend idle hours blithely speculating on   
   whether the prime minister will or won't obey the law, as if it were a game of   
   chance?   
      
   Yes, yes, yes, I know: it's not technically a breach of the law.  It says right   
   there in the Act: "Nothing in this section affects the powers of the Governor   
   General, including the power to dissolve Parliament at the Governor General's   
   discretion."   And who advises the Governor General, which advice he is bound   
   to accept?  The prime minister, of course.   
      
   So yes, in terms of the strict letter of the law, the prime minister is obliged   
   to call an election on "the third Monday of October in the fourth calendar year   
   following polling day for the last general election," unless he isn't.   
      
   But that wasn't the way the law was sold.  "Fixed election dates," then   
   Government House leader Rob Nicholson boasted at the time, "will improve the   
   fairness of Canada's electoral system by eliminating the ability of governing   
   parties to manipulate the timing of elections for partisan advantage."  And   
   it's clearly not the spirit and purpose of the law.  Or if it is - if the   
   spirit and purpose of the law is utter meaninglessness - then what on earth was   
   the point?   
      
   Critics of the law would no doubt agree.  Constitutionally, they point out, the   
   Governor General's discretion cannot be constrained; that being true, the law   
   cannot be binding on the government; and so long as the law cannot be enforced,   
   it is an absurdity.  But no law is perfectly binding.   
   If a government no longer wishes to abide by it, it always has the power to   
   repeal it, by act of Parliament.   
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   Laws, then, are a kind of solemn undertaking.  As an assurance of its good   
   faith, the government puts its intentions in writing, in the knowledge that   
   should it ever wish to be released from its pledge, it will have to ask   
   Parliament to pass a new law, formally and publicly, and to accept whatever   
   consequences follow.  That is what we expect, or at any rate what we used to   
   expect.  And what is ultimately binding on the government is that expectation:   
   the expectation of good faith.  Or as it is sometimes put, "the honour of the   
   Crown."   
      
   We should not have to wonder whether the laws Parliament passes are of any   
   worth or meaning, or whether the government we elect will seek refuge in fine   
   print and Clintonian wordplay to wriggle out of them.   
      
   We should not have to worry that our government is trying to con us.   We are   
   entitled to some expectation of good faith, and if we have lost even that then   
   the implications are a lot worse than an untimely election call.   
      
      
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         Loyalty to the country always.   Loyalty to the government when it   
   deserves it.        ~   Mark Twain   
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)