2021 federal election

[ijmorlan]

That said, I have zero issues with 4 years, it makes things consistent and predictable.  Would be even better if we could have all cities, regions, provinces and the country do it at the same time. But, the set-up for provinces and the country don't allow for that type of set-up.

Four years is fine. (But, at least for me, so is five.) But all this law does is cap it at a maximum of four years: it's silly to even pretend that it sets "fixed election dates" as the parliament may be dissolved by the GG at any time, usually on the prime minister's request.

I would like to see a limit to the campaign period, though, the 77 days was just ridiculous.

I would say the campaign period length is actually part of the advantage of the election happening whenever the Premier/Prime Minister says it happens. The campaign starts when they dissolve Parliament. By contrast, in the US, campaigns have been getting longer and longer, to the point that now there is basically no actual period of normal governing — as soon as one election is over, people are starting early campaigning for the next one, and the actual campaign when people are mostly campaigning is several months. I suggest the 77 days was partly because everyone knew when the election was coming; if we actually stick with the 4 years rule we might get longer and longer campaigns. Or maybe calling early will become standard, and then eventually somebody will call an election past the 4 year mark, and then eventually the fixed date provision will be removed entirely in a housekeeping bill.

And while I consider the criticism that the PM can strategically choose the election date a valid and reasonable criticism, in practice I don’t think it’s a real problem. We haven’t had long stretches of the same people being re-elected due to their clever election timing; instead people seem to do things that appear clever and then end up losing in one way or another.