The Conservatives have booked airtime to run pre-campaign TV ads before Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls an election, taking advantage of their big edge in money before spending limits kick in, sources say.
The TV ads will be the first the Tories have aired in more than eight months, although the party has almost continuously run radio ads attacking Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion - and even those spots have been stepped up in recent weeks.
Once a campaign begins officially, spending limits set the major parties on a more level playing field, as the cash-poor Liberals can borrow to spend the maximum of about $19-million.
But some of Mr. Harper's opponents complain that the fixed-date election law that his government passed was supposed to limit a prime minister's ability to set the timing of a national vote for political advantage - and Mr. Harper is now doing just that.
Meanwhile, their Minister of Health hangs out in Denver - wisecracking about food safety! - while Canadians die from the listeria outbreak, itself a product of Tory policy.
Tony Clement - who can lecture doctors about ethics, but can't be bothered to show up during an actual health emergency - won his riding by 28 votes. I'm counting on Canadians to be smarter than the Conservatives think they are.
I also liked these letters in today's Globe and Mail.
At the time of King-Byng, there was no law setting the date of the next election. We now have a new legal reality. The Prime Minister proposed and Parliament complied, and so we have legislation setting the date of the next election in 2009, unless, that is, the government is defeated in the House of Commons. Mr. Harper, in insisting on an election without either of these conditions being met, is asking the Governor-General to sanction a breach of the law.
Wouldn't it be wonderful and a victory for legality if the Governor-General, in so many words, told Mr. Harper to take a hike, that she will not grant him a dissolution without a defeat in the Commons. That way, she will uphold both the Constitution and the law in the face of a PM who seems to respect neither.
Allen Mills, Department of politics, University of Winnipeg
Stephen Harper has made it clear he is unable to lead a "dysfunctional" minority government. Should he trigger an early election, he should make a deal with Canadians, pledging to resign if he does not attain a majority. After all, who wants a prime minister who is incapable of leading the country under less than ideal circumstances, which another minority government will be?
Norman Rosencwaig, Toronto
Stephen Harper has suddenly discovered that Parliament is "dysfunctional" (Will The PM Get Away With His Risky Election Gambit? Probably - Aug. 27). Strangely, my Canadian Oxford Dictionary does not include the following among the definitions of this word: "potentially deleterious to the fortunes of the Conservative Party of Canada, particularly with respect to election-financing scandals."
He must use a different dictionary.
Steven Spencer, Toronto
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