Spring election dodgy

The odds went up this week that the scenario of a spring federal election will turn out to have been little more than the pipe dream of hawkish Liberal insiders.

Even before a resurgence of COVID-19 wreaked havoc on Newfoundland and Labrador’s best-laid election day plans,

Justin Trudeau’s brain trust was of two minds about the timing of the next campaign.

If there is one thing an incumbent party does not want as it makes a bid for re-election, it is to be forced off script by events outside of its control.

Campaigns have been known to turn on a dime.

But the lessened probability of a spring campaign will do little to temper the election fever that is by now rampant on Parliament Hill.

If not in the spring, then all parties are gearing up for a fall vote, either because one presumes the Liberals will want to bank on the success of their vaccine deployment or, alternatively, because the opposition parties will want to take advantage of a government failure to deliver vaccines promised to all Canadians who want one by the end of September.

By then, Trudeau’s second term will be close to the halfway mark. On average, minority governments in this country have tended to last 18 to 24 months.

That relatively short shelf life is largely self-imposed. On the morning after the election of a minority government, the minds of the incumbents start turning to the shortest path to majority territory while the runner-up becomes fixated on the opportunity to make the small leap from opposition to power.

As understandable as the partisan perspective may be, it is not matched by a compelling governance rationale.

The pandemic is the second global crisis to take place on the watch of a minority Canadian government in a bit more than a decade.

There is no material proof that Canada would have navigated either the 2008 financial crisis or the pandemic better had Stephen Harper and/or Trudeau commanded majorities in Parliament.

The need to come to a bipartisan consensus on the way forward has not been an impediment to federal action; it has acted as a guardrail against some of the worse instincts of parties in power.

Erin O’Toole is right when he predicts the next campaign will not be fought with all eyes on the rearview mirror. The path to a successful economic recovery will take precedence on the road travelled during the pandemic. But the underlying ballot-box question will be that of the competence of the main contenders.

That’s why an efficient vaccine deployment is so central to

Liberal fortunes. That’s also why O’Toole is scrambling to recast his party as a reassuring government in waiting.

The recent letters in The Daily Courier complaining about Westside Road conditions unfairly ignore the many millions of dollars spent in recent years on considerable safety improvements along this challenging, but beautiful, minor highway.

To suggest, as Mr. Nol Preen did (‘Westside Road complaint was right on the mark,’ Courier letters, Feb 12), that in the last eight years “nothing has been done” is simply false. I have used this route regularly for 35 years and commend the Ministry of Highways for the work done to date.

Slow down and enjoy the views. Remember that there are countless demands for highway improvements right across our province, many in regions far more densely populated and much busier than Westside Road. I suggest the ministry should respond with a list of the improvements done and money spent on Westside road to set the record straight.

Peter Warner, Peachland