Prediction: Gerard Gallant’s Vegas Knights will make it to the Stanley Cup final this spring … so will the Toronto Maple Leafs.
OK, maybe that’s just the NHL final I’d like to see but an argument could be made that it’s within the realm of possibility.
Kind of like the date for the next provincial election in P.E.I. – it could be the spring of 2020, the spring or fall of 2019 or maybe even this spring. It’s anyone’s guess.
Premier Wade MacLauchlan’s Liberal government currently tops the opinion polls and they’re getting ready to deliver what’s likely to be a surplus budget, fueling speculation we could be heading to the polls sooner than later.
Now, I can understand why the premier may not want to go with the fixed date (October 2019), as it would conflict with a federal election. And he probably doesn’t want to stretch the mandate to five years by pushing it back to the spring of 2020. What would make the most sense would be an election call next spring as he marks his fourth year in office. Or, if he wanted to go earlier to avoid a downturn in the economy (or a surge in support for opposition parties), I suppose the premier could make an argument for going to the polls this fall.
But I struggle with the prospect of an election this spring barely three years into his mandate. It wouldn’t be without precedent, in fact, I well remember 1989 when the late Joe Ghiz went to the polls less than three years after his Liberal party was first elected. But Islanders had just learned the federal government would be closing CFB Summerside, taking along with it hundreds of military and civilian jobs. Ghiz felt he needed a new mandate to fight to save the base or to find a suitable replacement. He got it, taking 30 of 32 seats from the provincial Tories who could not distance themselves from the closure decision made by their federal cousins.
But I see no such urgency – real or perceived – for Premier MacLauchlan to take Islanders back to the polls this spring. It’s no small task for parties to identify and nominate candidates in 27 districts at the best of times, let alone to do it in the abbreviated time frame of a snap election.
And then there’s the matter of the referendum on electoral reform that is being held in conjunction with the next election. The first option is Mixed Member Proportional Representation and the second, although not officially confirmed, is likely to be the status quo, First-Past-the-Post. Properly educating voters so they could make an informed choice would surely take more than a few weeks during an election campaign.
No, now is not the time for a provincial election.
Premier MacLauchlan should give us the surplus budget the Liberals have been promising for nearly a decade, and start to reduce a burgeoning debt that now tops $2 billion. He should address serious deficiencies in health care and work to reduce the poverty level in this province. He should also give us the opportunity for a real debate on electoral reform by setting the parameters well in advance of the referendum.
What he should not give us is an election we neither want or need.
- Wayne Young is an instructor in the journalism program at Holland College in Charlottetown.
