Thought of the Day - August 13 2021 - National Election Fever

Back last fall, incumbent provincial parties cashed in on COVID uncertainty and called elections early ( Thought of the Day - October 6 - Elections BC - particularly those hoping to move from a minority to a majority government); and it worked. Now, it looks like it will finally happen at the Federal level.

I was predicting, way back at the beginning of May ( Thought of the Day - May 5 2021 - Meanwhile in Ontario ), that Trudeau would call a September election. Here in Canada, we have a 36-day minimum lead-time to call an election. The date being bantered around in the press now seems to be September 20th. Thus, Trudeau is now pretty much at the wire and will need to dissolve parliament by Monday.

It is not surprising that the shortest notification period will be used. It means the opposition parties, which never managed to broker a non-confidence vote in order to decide election timing, will have only a short period to muster an effective media campaign. That said, for months now I have been receiving various "smear ads" (actually, most of them funded by the Liberals) on social media, and this week I got a personal letter from Erin (don't get me wrong this is all far better than the debacle of a year or more of slander that is common in the US; slander that, as we have seen, can nearly tear a country apart. I just hope the parties will now switch gears and talk about what they can do for Canada, what they will do for us, rather than continuing to highlight what others have done wrong in the past.)

Anyway back to COVID. The reason for the timing is obvious:

• the latest wave has subsided, and a new wave is in the offing (more on this in Sunday's - By the Numbers);

• electorate cheques are planned - the $500 cheques to seniors will be issued Monday (a little less transparent than the $1k Recovery Benefit election promise used in BC);

• a few key, overdue, policies are in place: e.g. borders ( Thought of the Day - July 23 2021 - Nuttin' Borin' 'bout Borders ) and passports ( Thought of the Day - July 8 2021 - Vaccine Passports: Update - amazing to see how things develop when you are offline for a couple of days).

Anyway, I plan to work the election. And I hope you will get out and exercise your right to vote.

Cheers

Cliff