Federal election may be a long way off

Garth Turner, in his recent blog entry entitled French Kiss, speculates that the next federal election may be as far off as 2009. This is due to the factors I mentioned in yesterday's blog (that no party stands to win anything) plus the newly anticipated changes in the Bloc Quebecois. Andre Bosclair has stepped down as leader of the provincial Parti Quebecois, and the BQ's leader Gilles Duceppe is widely rumoured to be looking at jumping from the federal to the provincial political scene. This would give the BQ even less incentive to call an election. The Liberals and the NDP do not have enough votes together to cause a non-confidence motion.

Imagine a parliament filled with parties who are trying to out-maneuver each other, not trusting each other, and yet, somehow, stuck in an eternal dysfunctional dance where no party wants to go to the polls, and yet they still need to maintain their adversarial positions. Such a dilemma. Let us hope for the best quality decision making that such an arrangement can have. If only they could agree on a few critical directions .. and then act.