Roundup: We have a date for dissolution

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This is not a drill – the election call will be coming on Sunday, for an election date of September 20th – a thirty-six day campaign, which is the bare minimum and technically will take place entirely in the summer. But until that happens, you can expect a flurry of announcements later today – a child care agreement with Saskatchewan, probably a few more Senate appointments, possibly some more judges, and any other senior bureaucrats who need to be repositioned before the government goes into caretaker mode.

Of course, as this is taking place, case counts are once again starting to rise across the country, and we are officially at the start of a fourth wave – because of course we are. While we can expect to hear a lot of hand-wringing about this over the next week or so, I would expect that the bulk of rallies or events will be held outdoors over the course of the campaign, plus a lot more virtual events – after all, Erin O’Toole is renting out that studio space with its big screens to do just that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other leaders have similar plans that they have not yet unveiled.

Also, because this will drive me insane for the next week, the phrase “drop the writ” is completely wrong. There is no single writ, and it does not drop. Once the Governor General signs the proclamation to dissolve parliament, the Chief Electoral Officer will draw up 338 writs – one for each election being held (because remember, an election is not a single event – it’s 338 separate but simultaneous elections). So don’t use a wrong phrase, and save yourself a scolding from me.

Good reads:

  • Pfizer says that data from the vaccine trial for children under 12 is expected by the end of the year.
  • Harjit Sajjan put out a release that makes it clear that Admiral Art McDonald is on administrative leave until further notice.
  • Karina Gould says that the ten million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine we procured will be sent to COVAX to redistribute to developing countries.
  • The single sports betting law will go into effect on August 27th.
  • Canadian Special Forces are on standby to evacuate our embassy in Kabul.
  • Here’s a look at how Erin O’Toole’s vision of Canada is shaping up after his first week of pre-campaign campaigning.
  • Jagmeet Singh released the entire NDP platform yesterday, and while it’s full of warmed-over handwavey promises, all of the headlines are about wealth taxes.
  • Singh also announced that his wife is expecting a baby.
  • BC is making it mandatory for all long-term care workers to be vaccinated.
  • Heather Scoffield tries to reconcile the feeling of “it’s 1995 and will always be 1995,” with the imperative to create growth in the recovery that works for everyone.
  • Jen Gerson evaluates how being given a second chance at an election has helped Jagmeet Singh, which is hard to do in an era of “magpie politics.”
  • Robert Hiltz has a lengthy read about Canada’s history of watering down the genocide convention until it didn’t apply to our treatment of Indigenous people.
  • Hiltz also looks to the IPCC report and the current state of the climate debate in this country, and is rightfully pessimistic about how it will play out in the election.

Odds and ends:

The plans to create an LRT loop along Wellington Street and across to Gatineau are firming up, but there are still those who want another tunnel rather than at street-level.

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4 thoughts on “Roundup: We have a date for dissolution”

  2. Dale,

    “There is no single writ, and it does not drop. Once the Governor General signs the proclamation to dissolve parliament, the Chief Electoral Officer will draw up 338 writs – one for each election being held (because remember, an election is not a single event – it’s 338 separate but simultaneous elections). So don’t use a wrong phrase, and save yourself a scolding from me.”

    You forgot to mention that each Writ has to be signed by the Chief Electoral Officer, and more importantly, either by the Governor General, or by a Deputy of the Governor General, to make it official.

    There is a sample writ published in the book THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AT WORK
    by the Honourable John A. Fraser, the first Speaker of the House of Commons to be elected by secret ballot in 1986. It was published by the House of Commons of Canada in 1993, and the sample writ appears on page 18.

    Apparently, the Honourable David Onley, in 2014 had to signed two writs for each of the one hundred and seven electoral districts when he was the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario; as one copy was retained by the Chief Election Officer of Ontario, whereas, the second copy was remitted to the Returning Officer.

    Ronald A. McCallum

  3. There is no single writ, and it does not drop. Once the Governor General signs the proclamation to dissolve parliament, the Chief Electoral Officer will draw up 338 writs – one for each election being held (because remember, an election is not a single event – it’s 338 separate but simultaneous elections). So don’t use a wrong phrase, and save yourself a scolding from me.

    Yeah, but the problem is that people tend to vote on the basis of parties and leaders, not local candidates, and when our current FPTP system means that parties can have majorities before the polls even close in the western parts of the country, you have people in those provinces and territories wondering what the hell the point of their even voting is, not to mention that regional politics plays a major impact in how citizens relate to Ottawa, where FPTP creates the illusion of regionally homogenous blocs, which leads to people in some parts of the country feeling like they’re shut out of any decision-making in Ottawa (e.g. most of Western Canada during the Chretien and Trudeau years).

    Those don’t strike me as features so much as they do bugs.

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