Originally posted by: Warbler

Originally posted by: GundarkHunter
At the same time, is there really a good time to call an election in Canada? It would be easier if we had regularly scheduled elections like the Americans do; that way, a ruling party could not call an election whenever the members felt like it, and people would be forewarned and adjust their schedules accordingly.

You don't have a regularly scheduled election? How do you elections work?

Pretty much exactly the way Gundark said it. A party tries to call an election when it feels it would be in that party's best interest. Usually, one party holds a majority of the seats in the government, so they pretty much hold the election when they feel the polls suggest they would win (within reason, of course...each term being three to five years).

In the last election (last spring), however, the Liberals, who held a majority government from 1993-2004 (four terms) were held to a minority position, where they had the most seats, but not a majority of the seats. Since then, they've been making alliances to get one party or another to vote with them so that they can form a majority. Now, after revelations of corruption during the Liberal reign of the 90's, the three opposition parties are looking to pass a vote of non-confidence in the government and force an election. Now, whether that election happens in December or February or April depends on what the leaders of the three parties decide. One of the big "no-no's" is a Christmas election, because the primary view is that the public wouldn't want that, so whoever calls a Christmas vote would fall in the polls.

I hope I didn't make that too confusing. I'll be honest, I left out a lot of stuff that you "should" know if you wanted to know the whole story. Canadian politics is so hard to follow, but it sure makes one amazing soap opera!

To sum it up, our elections happen when the government thinks it can win.

If you do want to know more, Warbler, I'm more than willing to try to oblige.