Election's legality challenged.

This is from the Star Phoenix (Saskatoon)
Somehow I imagine the courts will respond the same way as the Liberals when confronting the Conservatives. They will let the election pass and let Harper walk all over them. Of course with a great deal of humbug and legal rhetoric designed to justify the election call. The article says the following is the legal question:
On the legal side of the issue, the question is simple. Does the Conservatives' fixed election legislation mean anything or not? If it does, then Harper is obligated to abide by it. If it doesn't, then it's pretty plain that Harper is only paying lip service to the concept of fixed election dates because he thinks it's what people want to hear.
We already know the answer to that question. By calling the election in the face of his own legislation Harper has already shown that he is only paying lip service to the concept and passed the legislation because he thought it was what people wanted to hear. He did the same thing when he recognised Quebec as a nation trying to buy their votes.

Election's legality challenged

Randy Burton
The StarPhoenix
Saturday, October 18, 2008
CREDIT: Reuters
Prime Minister Stephen Harper greets supporters after Tuesday's election
Is it possible that the federal election that gave Stephen Harper another minority government was illegal?
If so, should Harper be allowed to call another early election when it suits his political timetable?
We are going to discover the answers to those questions at some time within the next year when the Federal Court of Canada hears a legal challenge to Harper's election call.
You will recall that Tuesday's vote was the election we were not supposed to have. The Conservatives wanted to fix the dates of national elections in order to remove the manipulation and political posturing that surrrounds election timing in Canada.
The underpinning of this idea is that the governing party has an unfair advantage if it is allowed to call an election at any time. A fixed election date levels the playing field and gives all parties a chance to prepare for an election at a predetermined date.
Harper had declared that he intended to honour this principle when his government passed legislation that fixed election dates to be held on the third Monday in October, four years after a general election.
The only exception was to be in instances where the government lost the confidence of the House, in a minority government situation.
The record is replete with statements of the prime minister and his justice minister, Rob Nicholson, declaring that the government would not voluntarily call an election, but would have to be forced from office.
"There would have to be non-confidence votes taken by the Opposition," Nicholson told a Senate committee examining the legislation in December 2006.
As we know, the Conservatives have yet to lose any such vote. Harper asked Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean to dissolve Parliament and call an election at a time when the House of Commons wasn't even sitting.
This has prompted an advocacy group called Democracy Watch to challenge Harper's action in court.
The group argues that not only did Harper's action violate the letter of the Conservatives' own law, it flouts the spirit of it as well.
However, the issue is far from clear. Section 56.1 of the fixed election bill says "nothing in this section affects the powers of the Governor General, including the power to dissolve Parliament at the Governor General's discretion." That would seem to indicate the G-G can clear the decks for an election at any time.
But the legislation also says that subject to that power, elections shall only be held every four years, beginning with Monday, Oct. 19, 2009.
Democracy Watch argues that the unwritten convention that allows the Governor General to dissolve the legislature only after a non-confidence vote limits her powers. In other words, not only was it illegal for Harper to ask her to dissolve Parliament, it was illegal for her to agree to it.
Secondly, even if the court were to find that calling an election was legal under the fixed election act, Democracy Watch argues that it violated guarantees of a fair election under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
These arguments are backed by prominent political scientists who have attached their own names to the court challenge. For example, University of Toronto Prof. Errol Mendes calls the prime minister's move "a stunning development."
Mendes says Harper cannot claim that meeting the opposition party leaders outside the House to discover they could still oppose him in the House amounts to honouring the spirit of the fixed election law.
Democracy Watch launched this challenge in mid-campaign but the court decided not to disrupt the election process once the horse was out of the barn. The question now is whether Harper should be allowed to open the same door again without losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons.
This is of critical importance in both political and legal terms. On the political side, Canada is now into its third consecutive minority government, and the prospects for more are very good. As long as the Bloc Quebecois continues to take 40 or 50 seats out of play in every federal election, it's very difficult for any party to form a majority government.
So the odds are very good that in 18 months or two years, the Conservatives will find themselves in very similar circumstances, facing obstreperous opposition parties threatening to bring the Conservatives down. Without some legal direction, there is nothing to prevent Harper from again ignoring his own law.
On the legal side of the issue, the question is simple. Does the Conservatives' fixed election legislation mean anything or not? If it does, then Harper is obligated to abide by it. If it doesn't, then it's pretty plain that Harper is only paying lip service to the concept of fixed election dates because he thinks it's what people want to hear.
It also raises questions about the integrity of provincial fixed election date laws. While a minority government seems a lot less likely in Saskatchewan, it's not out of the question, as the experience of 1999 showed.
A clear decision from the courts on how these laws should be interpreted would be welcome.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2008