Baranyai: Early elections undermine fragile democracy

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The whole world is holding its breath. Ballot counts haunt our dreams. Our nerves are barely holding, while tension south of the border falls somewhere between pressure cooker and powder keg. Still, democracy continues apace.

In October, Canada had three provincial elections in the span of nine days. If the schedule felt a bit hectic, blame fixed election dates, adopted nationally and in every province.

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Our fixed dates aren’t as rigidly predictable as “the Tuesday after the first Monday in November,” but they introduce greater stability and fairness to a system that otherwise leaves ample leeway for sitting governments to schedule voting to their own advantage. Between incumbents seeking a renewed mandate, and non-confidence votes by opposition parties, fixed elections sometimes feel like the exception rather than the rule.

While fixed dates are not absolute, by design, neither are they intended to be purely ceremonial. Every piece of draft legislation working toward final passage unceremoniously dies on the Order Paper each time parliament is dissolved. Running an election also costs millions of dollars. People generally don’t love it when an early election smacks of purely partisan advantage.

As October’s whirlwind started to wind down, two more premiers added to the flurry. First, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston announced a snap election, eight months ahead of schedule. Houston made fixed election dates his first piece of legislation as premier, in the name of a level playing field, just three years ago.

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This week, the Conservative leader veered sharply off the high road in a bright blue campaign bus, arguing his majority government needed “a renewed fresh mandate to stand up for our province.” He also blamed potential overlap of Nova Scotia’s fixed date (in July) with a federal election (scheduled for October).

The next gust blew in from Ontario, where Premier Doug Ford announced $200 tax rebates for every adult and eligible child, in what is widely seen as feathering the nest for an early election in 2025. Ford says the rebates will help Ontarians feeling the pinch of rising costs. (Cheques will go to every taxpayer, struggling and wealthy alike, and will cost the province about $3 billion.)

The premier denies the Oprah-like giveaway is connected to an early election, but does not deny plans for the election itself, which otherwise is not due until June 4, 2026. Ford has worked assiduously to set expectations for an early trip to the polls, despite an ongoing criminal investigation into the Greenbelt scandal.

Fixed election dates have been adopted, and ignored, by governments of all stripes, as they give in to the pull of irresistible advantage. In 2020, Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs was the first in New Brunswick to ignore fixed dates, seeking to hold power through the pandemic. The same year in B.C. – where fixed elections have been observed with near-perfect continuity – former NDP Premier John Horgan capitalized on his popularity and the province’s COVID response under Dr. Bonnie Henry to secure a majority in an early election.

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Federally, fixed elections were adopted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006. The Conservative leader called an early election just two years later; federal voter turnout hit an all-time low, at just 58.8 per cent. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got a similar response from weary voters when Liberals triggered a snap election just two years into their second mandate, in a failed bid for a majority government.

People, we are tired. Democracy feels fragile enough. We should observe fixed dates as the rule, not the exception.

write.robin@baranyai.ca

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