Lawrence Martin Plays Dumb

If Stephen Harper does "get away with" calling a snap election without incurring some political cost, it will be because journalists like Lawrence Martin drove the getaway car.

On the question of contradicting his own election legislation, [Mr. Harper] said: 'We are clear. You can only have certainty about a fixed election date in the context of a majority government.' That's true enough, though he probably wished he'd made it clearer when the law was passed.

Imagine a counter-factual in which everything is the same, including Bill C-16, but Harper has a majority government. What would there be to stop him from doing exactly what he is hellbent on doing now--dissolving parliament and calling a snap election? If you answered nothing, you guessed right. The only thing, the ONLY thing C-16 changes is that a government can no longer drag their term out into a 5th year. And this fact was obvious way back when the bill was first passed, even if they didn't clue in at the G&M until this morning.

Update: Even Radwanski's drank the koolaid over there.

How Can He Do That?

The For Dummies version:

Because here's the thing: Even though we now have a fixed election law, it isn't completely binding on the government that adopted it.

The For Non-Dummies version:

1) The revised Act will NOT let a government that is down in the polls extend its term into a fifth year, a la Mulroney's gang and Bob Rae's hapless Ontario Dippers.

2) The revised act WILL continue to allow a government up in the polls to pull the plug on a parliamentary section and call a snap election, a la Chretien in 2003.

The question really has only ever been will the Tories, having touted Bill C-16, pay a price when and if they try and slip out through one of its loop-holes? Hard to say. If the first week of any election campaign can be made to be about the timing of the election call, then maybe. Think David Peterson.

By the way, Ted at Cerberus wrote about the defects of this Bill C-16 back in May/June of 2006. The MSM is just now catching up, apparently.