How much will Canada’s Federal Election cost?

Finding myself on the road on Sunday, the day that Stephen Harper dropped the writ, this was the question that Toronto’s 24-hour all-news radio station (680 News) asked over and over again, on the hour, every time they told us about the federal election that had just been called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The was on the unnecessary cost due to Harper’s insistence that it be an unprecedented 11 weeks long. Because 680 is just a headline news station that has no talk-show hosts on it, I have observed it to be a reliable disseminator of whatever the Canadian news media’s current talking points are.

My first retort is costly to whom? By increasing the length of the campaign to 11 weeks, its cost went up by $125 million. This looks like a lot of money until you notice that the 2015 Canadian federal budget is $290 billion. This is what is really at stake, because the winner of this contest will determine whether Canada will continue with balanced budgets or go into deficit territory. If today’s fiscal discipline were removed by Thomas Mulcair or Justin Trudeau, the deficit could easily balloon to $20 billion per year – if not more. These are the real fiscal stakes at play.

Also consider the reverse situation. What if Harper had shortened the writ period from the normal six weeks to four weeks in order to, say, save money? Then the opposition parties would no doubt accuse him of stifling democracy by limiting their campaigning time.

Obviously, the real reason for their complaint is that the Conservatives are better able to go the distance than the opposition parties are because they are richer so they, in effect, gave themselves an advantage. My response: OK, so what? In every previous Canadian election, the governing party dropped the hammer whenever they thought it was the most convenient time for them to do so according to the latest public opinion polls, and nobody thought twice about this selfish, partisan practice. In contrast, this is the first federal election when the governing party set the day of the election so far in advance that it had no idea whether it would be a good time to hold it or not. And Stephen Harper stuck to that date, voluntarily tying his hands in a way that no previous Prime Minister has ever done before.

The only way he could satisfy the opposition parties would be if he chose the most convenient writ period length from their perspective. And even then, they would likely still complain publically in order to score cheap points.

It is sad state of affairs that such a piece of blatant partisan propaganda could be passed off as a straightforward news headline. If 680 News were truly an objective headline news station, it would have instead matter-of-factly announced the election call, and then - in a separate news item - reported on the opposition parties’ complaint about its’ length.

The really surprising thing is that in spite of such blatant examples of journalistic abuse as this, there are plenty of people who still contend –with a straight face – that there is no left-wing bias in our media!

 

Comments

[monkey]

The real reason I think Harper dropped the writ early was so the third party advertising rules would kick in. He didn't want to allow the unions to do what they did to Hudak.

[Dan Mancuso]

"The really surprising thing is that in spite of such blatant examples of journalistic abuse as this, there are plenty of people who still contend –with a straight face – that there is no left-wing bias in our media!"
The facts are in, the truth has been established, the case is closed;
LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER.