Okay, so what happens if an election is called before December?

[tuvor]

Or do we just assume a federal election before the year's out is out of the question? (Boy, do I feel ign'ant.)

Liberal leadership hopefuls: See you in December

The Liberal Party of Canada will vote for a new leader during a convention Dec. 2-3 in Montreal, the party's national executive announced Sunday.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/03/19/sliberals-race060319.html

[Bassic]

1. What I'm wondering is..

What the hell to they need until December for? Like they can't make up their friggin minds before that?

[Bragi]

2. Good question

Seems to me the assumption the Libs and everyone else is making is that there won't be an election until 2007. But what happens if Harper decides to engineer his own defeat in, say, fall 2006?

Seems to me there are lots of variables here. I presume the Liberal Parliamentary caucus could appoint an interim leader to represent the party during a campaign. I suppose this could even be done on the basis that the stand-in will step down once a leader is selected by convention.

An interesting consdieration is that, if the subsequent election was really just a referendum on whether or not people want to give Harper a majority, then maybe not having a leader would not be that much a problem.

I say that because I've noticed in the past that popular support for a party often goes up during leadership contests, when they don't actually have a confirmed leader, so maybe the same would hold true if an election were held in that situation.

Having said that, the only reason Harper would conceivably engineer his own defeat next fall would be if polls were such that he felt he could get a majority.

So I'm not sure why the Opposition would play along, though when you have 3 parties in opposition, you never know.

- B

[daleo]

3. Joe Clark did just that in 1979-80

Trudeau stepped back in and won the 1980 election. Harper must know that the strategy can backfire.