Man Your War Rooms!

So first, the story. Then the rebuttal.

Do you have it? Election fever? We seem to be getting it a lot these days. In fact, we seem to be getting annual cases of election fever with such regularity that they ought to be researching a vaccine. So Canadians could be headed to the polls as soon as this fall. It would be the 4th election since June of 2004.

Transportation Minister John Baird (who, holding the oh-so-important role of making sure everyone gets their license plate stickers replaced, is totally qualified to speak for the government) is nonplussed.

"Michael Ignatieff has indicated that he wants to plunge Canadians into the fourth election in five years... believes we should head to an unuseful, early election."

Right. Because it's not like the Tories would ever call a premature election. Except for when they pulled the plug on the 39th parliament after only 29 months and scheduled an election to happen conveniently before the recession would become a major issue. Right after they passed a law saying that it would be illegal for the government to do that. It also came conveniently at a time the Liberals were heavy in debt from their last leadership race and unable to match the media blitz. And I guess there was the 38th parliament, which they defeated via non-confidence motion after only 13 months, after having tried and failed to defeat the government 6 months prior on a budget vote (which, if you're keeping count at home, would mean they wished to force Canadians into an election 7 months into the session, which would be about 4 months quicker than the Liberals are now attempting). Never mind the fact that the last two elections were either called by a Conservative Prime Minister or triggered by predominantly Conservative votes, because this is a game of partisanship only the Liberals play.

There are plenty of issues on the table right now that are worthy of our attention via an electoral campaign. The recession, and the stimulus required to jump start the Canadian economy. The future of our Afghan mission, which both major leaders support but have vast differences of opinion about how to make it a success. The environment, which has been ignored on the election trail for years, and was only discussed last time in order to tar Stephane Dion to the lunatic fringe. And of course, how giving the Toronto Blue Jays an extra $100 million in taxpayers money every year could give Canadians something to be truly proud of in these trying times. One of those is a joke. Seriously, nobody gives a fuck about the environment.

Don't get me wrong, I know that the political opportunism is at play on both sides here. The things that are issues right now were issues in the summer, and in the spring. Hell, the discussion of stimulus spending is so imperative that it really should have been had 9 months ago. But the reason we might be going to the polls has little to do with the issues and more to do with the reason for the last 3 election calls: because the party making the call thinks they can win. The Liberals find themselves in a pretty sweet position right now. They've got a fresh leader, an economy in needing of leadership and, most important of all, a shit-ton of money. For the first time in a while the Liberals were able to out-fundraise the Conservative over the second quarter of this year, and are much better prepared for an election now than they were a year ago. You want to tar our guy as a "just visiting" cosmopolitan? Fine. We'll tar your guy as a lunatic right wing remnant of the Bush era. Who cares about the issues, this is politics.

And here comes the fury. We've got three major, decisive issues facing our country and have avoided talking seriously about them thus far. We've had a major political shift in our neighbours to the south, and haven't had the chance to re-assess our relationship with them yet. And we have new possibilities with the economy having bottomed out for Canada to emerge from this crisis a global leader. And will we talk about that? Of course not. We'll spend the first few weeks passing blame about why we're having this election, and then the rest arguing about tiny inconsequential wedge issues that skew well for the party bringing them up. Because that is what our political system has become over the past 16 years or so. Makes sense, because our leaders are definitely acting like teenagers.

Fuck 'em.