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It was a snap election was it not? To me it seemed like the Canadian government was trying to take advantage of some weird timing/power trick to remain in gover
by animal_spirits 5y ago
It was a snap election was it not? To me it seemed like the Canadian government was trying to take advantage of some weird timing/power trick to remain in government. Instead of waiting for the normal time to re-elect they saw an opportunity to stay in power. I am uneducated on Canadian politics so I could be seeing it wrong
- frosted-flakes 5y agoWhat is the "normal time" for an election? Elections don't have a set regularity, as long as they happen at least every 5 years.
- animal_spirits 5y agoHere in the US it is every 4 years, I didn't know that it was more ambiguous in Canada
- _whiteCaps_ 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_of_no_confidence#Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_of_no_confidence#Canada > At the federal level, a vote of no confidence is a motion presented by a member of the House of Commons that explicitly states the House has no confidence in the incumbent government.[3] The government may also declare any bill or motion to be a question of confidence. Major bills like budgets are automatically confidence votes as well. I think you need to get into the parliamentary minutiae to understand when other votes could cause an election.
- MattGaiser 5y agoThey were trying to take advantage of a pandemic lull to increase their power. It did not work. However, there was still an election.
- 908B64B197 5y agoHow much did this election cost? Canada got vaccine way after the US because they simply wouldn’t help companies pay for R&D and secure orders earlier, like the US did. So while you could get a walk-in vaccine at Wallmart here in America people were waiting in line for weeks for a chance at an appointment in Canada. Imagine how many lives it could have saved instead had they just put that money toward getting vaccines earlier.
- pm90 5y agoNo it’s not a trick it’s a feature of the parliamentary system. Arguably it’s much more Democratic in that you enable voters to choose whether they would like a change of leadership, anytime a Legislature is unable to function. OTOH in a Presidential system you get no such opportunity to get the public’s opinion. You have to wait until the end of terms (congressional or presidential or both).
- animal_spirits 5y agoThat makes sense to me. But which people get to choose when to re-elect a government? I read that the Governor General was the one to call this last election. Do only certain elected officials get the power to call this or can anyone?
- frosted-flakes 5y agoTechnically, the Governor General calls the electuin, but in practice it's not his or her choice, unless something unusual happens. Just a rubber stamp. If a majority of Members of Parliament vote yes on a no-confidence vote, that will trigger an election. Otherwise the prime minister chooses when an election will happen, within 5 years. If the government is a minority, it is likely it will call an election within a year or two if they're confident they could get a majority (this happened last year). Otherwise, with a majority government, they tend to wait longer before calling an election.
- animal_spirits 5y agoGotcha, thanks for the info!
- kennywinker 5y agoThis is how basically all elections involving a minority government happen here. They’re always trying to game the election timing to upgrade to a majority. Stephen Harper did it too (minority in 2006, majority in 2008).