That’s almost what happened when Harper tried to force a bill that would have removed party funding. The other parties were broke, got together to bring down the government, to then offer the GG a Liberal+NDP coalition (with silent Bloc support). In seeing this move Harper quickly asked the GG for a prorogation to prevent the confidence vote.
Wild times. I’m not certain PP wouldn’t pull the same combative tactics. I guess in such a case the GG would ask the opposition if they could form a government that would hold the house’s confidence.
Again I’m not really certain about the exact rules around dissolving Parliament, but that is our system, right?
Minor nitpick, it was a Supply and Confidence agreement rather than a coalition government. In a coalition government, the junior parties will get some cabinet representation.
If the government loses the support of the House, the GG sees if any other party can command the support of the House. If so, the GG invites their leader to form the government. If not, the writs are dropped and it’s back to the polls.
The two most recent precedents are at the provincial level.
British Columbia 2017: the provincial election returned a hung Parliament. Neither the Liberals nor the NDP had a majority. Premier Clark summoned the Assembly and lost a confiddnce vote. She then advised the Lt Gov to call a new election. Lt Gov said “Too soon. I’m going to ask Mr Horgan if he can form a govt.”. Clark resigned as premier, Lt Gov summoned Horgan, he advised her that he had an agreement with the Greens, and she appointed him premier.
Ontario 1985: Premier Miller succeeded Bill Davis and called an election. Miller won a plurality but not a majority. Liberals under Peterson came in second, with Rae and the NDP third. Peterson and Rae reached a deal. Miller said “no fair, I’ve got the most seats!” and called the Assembly. He lost a confidence vote and resigned. Lt Gov called on Peterson who advised that he could form a govt. Lt Gov appointed Peterson as Premier.
Both of those happened shortly after the election. Unclear how long the “too soon for an election” lasts. In 1926 in the King-Byng-Fling, the GovGen called on Meighen six months after the election. King argued that was too long a period, and won the resulting election.
The Economist still gives the Tories a 6% chance of majority and a 7% chance of minority government. CBC and 338 are far less generous. The Economist uses Monte Carlo simulations, many others are averages of polls.
Detailed analysis from Abacus. Too much to summarize easily, but here’s their conclusion:
These scenarios reveal the limits of the Conservative coalition and reinforce a central insight from the model: Poilievre’s support is strong, but not yet broad. Without a deeper sense of urgency for change across the electorate, the party will struggle to build the winning coalition it needs.
And his campaign isn’t doing anything to stop that. I was watching the hockey game last night, and saw both Liberal and Conservative ads.
The Liberal ads, while acknowledging the Trump Problem, were generally positive in tone, and talked about Carney, his qualifications, and how he was the right person to lead Canada through this crisis. I don’t think they even mentioned any other parties or candidates.
But the Conservative? Pure attack ads, still trying to litigate the last ten years, still trying to tie Carney to Trudeau, and still calling names, something like, “Can we elect these clowns to a fourth term?” No sense at all that they understand the game has changed in the last six months. Nothing in them to convince anyone not already on his side to switch their vote.
It’s what I’ve been saying all along: they are incapable of changing to meet the new reality, and that’s exactly what we don’t need in our next government. PP and his team are just the wrong people for this new job.
Isn’t one of the functions of the counters to look for signs of a spoiled ballot, as well as the one spot where the voter has put their X ? So the counters and scrutineers have to review the entire length of the ballot for any marks that might spoil it? Easy to do with only four or five candidates, but I would have thought it would take longer for a ballot with 99 names and circles.
Carleton had 71,000 votes in 2021. If that many people vote in the riding this time around, and it takes two seconds longer to count each ballot, that is an additional eighty hours of work.
Well each polling station (ballot box) is allotted no more then 600 electors (roughly) but in reality they will receive no more then 300 odd votes by the end of the night (people go to advanced polls and are struck from the lists, or they don’t vote, or whatever).
It won’t take long to bang out all the votes, even if you are an unlucky counter who’s ballot box has received the max amount of electors on election day.
What really prevents speedy tallys are all those late voters. The polling place has rules that if you show up / get in line … you’ll get to vote (I think the actual rule is “if it is past the poll close time… AND the line is short enough to close the outside door… you close it. Otherwise you must stay open and serve the voters”). Due to a constant stream of late voters, polling stations stay open pretty late, which delays counting.
I would suggest anyone to go to ANY of your local polling places at the end of the night. You’ll be allowed to watch the count (it’s all done open and the public is allowed to watch or dispute any particular ballot). Reporters and party officials often send representatives to every polling place to get the tallys early.
I wasn’t watching the hockey game, but I’ve seen the ads, and I agree: the Liberals’ ads are generally positive, while the Conservatives’ are negative. “Elect the Liberals, and it’s all doom and gloom.”
In many ways, it seems to me, the Conservatives are trying to win the last couple of elections. If their TV ads are any indication, they’re not trying to win this one, when so much has changed since those past ones.
After ten years of Liberal mismanagement, do you really want to elect the Liberals to a fourth term? What this tells is that the Cons have lost the last three elections and they seem to be dwelling on it.
It’s two old guys playing golf, while complaining about the last ten years. One of them mentions how he had to pay for his kid’s down payment on a house.
So, a couple of rich Boomers think “Conservative, for a Change” is a good idea.
I guess times have changed. My father (Mom died years before) would not, absolutely not, never in a million years, and twice on Sunday, have paid for a down payment on a house for me.
Hell, my parents refused to pay for tuition at university. I went, I paid for it, I earned it.
I might understand parents paying for a university or college education. I might even understand them letting the kid kip in their old room after graduation, until they get a job that lets them get an apartment. But a down payment on a house? No way.
Follow up on this, the news on the radio is saying that the Saturday voting was about the same number as the Friday voting. No information yet on Sunday or Monday, but good news in any case.
They made an ad about “How hard it is for the kids these days”, that featured old guys with enough money to drop a downpayment on a house complaining about how Canada is broken.
Maybe show the actual people who are being hurt, not their rich parents? Maybe show people who don’t have rich parents dropping tens to hundreds of thousands on them? Maybe have even a clue about how to appeal to the people with the biggest problems?
Nope, just golf, money and old white men. That’s the ticket!
