Harper's 2008 election call to be challenged
The Federal Court of Canada is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday against the election call last fall by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Democracy Watch, a citizens' group that monitors ethics in government, is to argue before the court in Ottawa that Harper violated his own legislation by calling the election before he'd served four years in office.
Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch seems to think this is a lose-lose for the Conservatives. This is Conacher as quoted in a press release (h/t babble):
"If Democracy Watch wins, the Federal Court will rule that Prime Minister Harper is a dishonest lawbreaker because he gave false reasons for calling the snap federal election last September in violation of his own fixed-election-date law. If Democracy Watch loses, the court will rule that Prime Minister Harper is a dishonest promise-breaker because he failed to keep his 2006 election promise to pass a law fixing election dates," said Conacher.
Works for me. And it doesn't hurt to have this in the headlines while everyone is jumping up and down about unnecessary elections.
Whooee! Always good to see the Cons squirmin' in the hotseat.
What if DW wins? Will Election40 be declared null and void?
If Parliament was dysfunctional in Sept 2008, did the election make it any more functional?
JB
Any bets that rather than accept this gracefully, the Conservatives will denounce Conacher as a Liberal?
Of course they will. If they lose, they'll denounce the judge as a Liberal, too.
Sadly, in the end, it will just be more grist for Doug Finley's Money Mill. The Conservatives will never accept that anyone has the right to tell them what to do.
That said, I hope the courts give the Conservatives a very hard time.
The country is in a sad state when democracy and decency must be forced upon the ruling government via the courts, over and over again. The majority is not behind you or your party Mr. Harper. The majority placed their votes elsewhere, with other parties, just as the majority of Germans placed their votes with parties other than the National Socialist German Workers' Party back in 1933. We all know how that turned out.