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Notes -
Semi-related: The date of the upcoming Canadian federal election.
By statute, Canadian elections are held on the third Monday of October, unless they aren't. Also, MPs only get a pension if they serve for six years. The problem? The third Monday of October 2019 (two elections ago) was the 21st, and the third Monday of October 2025 will be the 20th. The ruling Liberal party has put forward a bill to push it back by a week , to "not conflict with Diwali". Of course, 22 Liberal (and 58 other) members reaching eligibility would have nothing to do with that, particularly when the Liberals are expected to lose a devastating amount of seats.
Why didn't they see this coming in 2007, when they set the fixed dates? The pension rule was already 22 years old at that point, so it's not like it was unforeseeable.
Why not change the pension to be after three terms instead of six calendar years? That seems like clearly the intent and this is surely not the only time three terms will be less than six calendar years!
Six years is a term and a half under normal circumstances. Trudeau called an election mid-pandemic (when he was only two years into the four year term) because he (correctly) thought he was at peak popularity at that time. If that election hadn't happened and nothing else had changed, we would have been half a year into a Conservative majority, so good call, I guess.
That makes more sense. So this is only a problem when you call an election halfway through a term.
Yup, as happened in 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2021. It's not a rare event, it just never lined up perfectly before now.
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