And 4 days before my birthday - what were they thinking? At least it looks like elections in Canada are a bit like ones in Australia - most of the hoopla gets confined to the period between declaration and election, rather than with pre-elections for candidates.
I know we talked about this last time your government held an election, but as much as I have read on the parliamentary model, I just can't grok the ability to shut down the government and put every seat up for election any time you want. I also don't know the motivators for it. Is it mostly when a ruling coalition has broken down and the business of government is not getting done? Like where we have a filibuster on a major issue, instead of finding a compromise, the President of the Senate could dissolve it and throw all seats up for re-election? And the randomness of the dates throws me too. It feels to me so inherently unstable...
None of these should be taken as criticism of your government. These are markers of my ignorance.
Heh. Oddly, the government in power just recently passed a law to ensure fixed election dates. And have now promptly disregarded that law by dissolving parliament.
The key countering force is that voters don't seem to like having their time wasted. Past indications seem to suggest that voters punish parties who call elections when voters don't want to return to the polls.
In my opinion, the only part of the process that doesn't seem to work is that a deeply unpopular majority government can wait out their five-year mandate.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-07 02:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-07 02:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-07 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-07 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-07 11:05 pm (UTC)At least it looks like elections in Canada are a bit like ones in Australia - most of the hoopla gets confined to the period between declaration and election, rather than with pre-elections for candidates.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-07 05:18 pm (UTC)None of these should be taken as criticism of your government. These are markers of my ignorance.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-08 03:38 am (UTC)The key countering force is that voters don't seem to like having their time wasted. Past indications seem to suggest that voters punish parties who call elections when voters don't want to return to the polls.
In my opinion, the only part of the process that doesn't seem to work is that a deeply unpopular majority government can wait out their five-year mandate.