The World According to Oatney

An Election's On Up North

If there are regular readers who are like your author and also try to make it a point to follow Canadian and British politics as well as our own as closely as possible, you might be interested to know that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the Governor-General and asked for Parliament to be dissolved this past Sunday-and it was.

The 40th Canadian General Election will be held on October 14th, 2008.

There is no shortage of controversy about the election call in Ottawa because Harper's Government passed a law that fixed the date of the next election for October 2009. However, in the Westminster System there always has to be a way for the Government to call an election and Harper has utilized that legal loophole and managed to do just that. Its seems more than a bit coincidental that Harper and the Conservatives are doing reasonably well in national polls.

Needless to say, we've always been somewhat partisan toward the Conservative Party when discussing Canadian politics at The World. However, there are real and legitimate problems with Harper's leadership and Government. Perhaps the most notable of these in my eyes is his propensity to break his word to Newfoundland and brush off Newfoundlanders as a constituency that he does not need to win an election. This mentality reminds me of the Democratic Party in this country and the mentality among certain of its leaders that they do not need the South or Middle America to win a presidential election. We also see how that kind of political brushing off has fared for them in the last two quadrennial election cycles.

So how, pray tell, does any of this impact our own General Election on November 4th? The Canadian vote may not have much influence here, but there is little doubt that our electoral process is impacting how things are being done North of the Border. Many Canadian political pundits are speculating that an election was called in Ottawa to avert the prospect of U.S. results having too much of a role in the outcome of a Canadian General Election. Canadian politics do not mirror the United States...but there is often an echo in Canadian results.

As with the last time there was a Canadian election, there will be results and analysis here.

Labels: Elections, Foreign policy, Presidential Election

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 9:21 AM