10 Sep Oh horrors! Not an election?

For some time, Contrarian has been struck by the Parliamentary Press Gallery’s abhorrence of elections. It seems they cannot resist any pretext to drum up a story about what an abomination it would be to let Canadians vote.  What would World War II vets make of this mindset.  Tories scarcely need to press this partisan talking point; the press gallery does all the heavy lifting for them. Could the media’s incessant nattering on this point could be driving public opinion? Maclean’s Magazine’s ineffable Kady O’Malley wonders the same thing. Moneyquote:

[I]s anyone else sick to death of hearing about how Hill reporters Canadians don’t want a fall election, because we’re broke and it’s expensive to cover a campaign and the food is awful and the hours are long and it’s boring and waaaaaaaaahh they just don’t, okay? ITQ has to wonder how much our growing horror at the prospect of being herded back onto campaign buses is driving that particular number, as far as public opinion. Not that certain political parties aren’t above taking advantage of that message track if it suits their pre-writ runup, of course. Oh, democracy. It’s not you; it’s us.

We have an inherently unstable situation in Canadian politics: an ideologically based, right wing party that cannot command more than about 35% of the electorate; an ideologically based, left wing party that cannot command more than 20 percent of the electorate; a nationalist party with a lock on nearly 50% of the vote in our second-largest province; an ideologically based environmentalist party struggling lift itself out of fringe status; and a middle-of-the-road party whose history of corruption and inability to choose inspiring leaders has left voters with a sour taste. We will keep having frequent elections until one party or another moves out of its respective rut.