From The Editors

77 Days of Election

CNN is the news channel of choice for my parents. I often suggest they watch CBC so that they can actually understand what’s happening in their own country, but they would still rather watch American politics.

I think it’s because American politics is much, much more entertaining than whatever we could hope to have in Canada. Some of us like to laugh about the anti-Trudeau attack ad that says “nice hair though,” but it won’t compare to the theatre of Donald Trump. Nor have we had a recent Prime Minister with comparable oratory skills to Obama. For this reason, they watched the Republican debate live, and merely PVR’d the Canadian one.

So now that the writs of election have been dropped, my parents will hopefully pay attention to Canadian politics for the first time since 2011. Yes, it will be the longest election since 1926, but 77 days is nothing like what you currently see in the United States. The moment a President gets elected there, they’re already talking about the next election, and that discussion grows louder and louder as time goes on. President Obama has another 17 months or so in office, and they’re already holding Republican debates.

I can’t blame them in regards to entertainment. During the debate, Megyn Kelly of Fox News noted that Trump had called various women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” To which Trump replied “only Rosie O’Donnell.” I can’t remember anything from the Canadian debate that even came close in terms of entertainment value.

Though to be fair, Canadian politicians have less room for messing around, with possible exception to Elizabeth May, whose party only has one seat. With our electoral system, losing 5 per cent of the popular vote can cost you 11 per cent of your seats. Trudeau knows that a terrible debate performance in 2011 from Ignatieff arguably cost his party 43 seats and 18.91 per cent of the popular vote, and the good performance from Jack Layton likely brought NDP to official opposition status.

When my father watches CNN, he seems to enjoy watching American politicians saying incredibly bizarre things, which Canadian politicians kinda do once in a while. Sure, you might remember a weird exchange back in September between Tom Mulcair and Paul Calandra, where Mulcair asked a clear question about how long Canadian Forces would be involved in Iraq, Calandra replied by asking the NDP if they supported Israel. Strange as the situation was, such displays are rare in Canadian politics. Also, no one watches CPAC.

One of the concerns brought by opponents of Harper’s recent move is how expensive this election will be. Typically, a 37-day campaign costs roughly $375 million. All of those people hired by Elections Canada need to be on for much longer than usual. Parties are also able to spend more money, and with changes made to the Elections Act, this means they can spend up to $50 million. I don’t like this, but guess what, it’s much, much better that the people pay for politicians rather than massive private businesses, as happens in the United States. Not only this, but American elections cost billions of dollars, and in the case of Hillary Clinton, a lot of that money comes from banks.

I happen to be a big fan of our shorter, 37 day long elections. Politicians should spend most of their time doing their job, drafting and creating legislation to hopefully make our country better, or travelling to other countries to improve our global position.

But maybe, maybe with a longer cycle Canadian politics will become a little more interesting, as long as leaders actually show up to debates.

However, I don’t see much of this happening. Only a handful of my 20-something year old friends seem to care about Federal Canadian politics. Maybe Trudeau or Mulcair should pull an Obama and go on The Daily Show, but none of them watch the Rick Mercer Report. If we want to get people my age, and by extension, people my parents age to become engaged, Canada needs to produce another Pierre Trudeau, whom my father readily voted for at each opportunity.