Election Watch: Day 814

Any day now ...

The prevailing take on this week’s cabinet shuffle is that it’s a sign the Conservatives are reorganizing for an imminent election. But the Halifax Chronicle-Herald’s Stephen Maher flips the script on that analysis, arguing that it was actually a sign that a spring election isn’t in the cards. His reasoning for this is that the shuffle was minor (the only major reappointment being Peter Kent’s elevation to environment minister), and if Stephen Harper were serious about an election he’d have cut out some of the dead wood. “The fact that Harper decided not to shift out his old warhorses — I’m looking at you, Gordon O’Connor — suggests that he expects to shuffle again before an election,” Maher writes. The feeling here in The Mark Newsroom is that while there may not be an election this spring, low-profile party whip Gordon O’Connor has little to do with its timing. The lack of major cabinet moves may simply be an indication that Harper is confident in his team.

The Vancouver Sun’s Barbara Yaffe also predicts that there will be no election anytime soon, for the simple reason that polls show that a vote now would result in virtually an identical outcome to the previous one. But Yaffe does point out an interesting bit of political gamesmanship that could hurt the NDP. If recent missives from the Liberals are to be believed, they intend to vote against the next Conservative budget because it will include corporate tax cuts that they say will burden families. This will leave the NDP in the uncomfortable position of either supporting tax cuts they ideologically oppose or voting against the budget and triggering an election they likely don’t want. “In the end,” writes Yaffe, “the parties will adopt positions on the budget based less on principles regarding corporate tax cuts and more on political considerations.” True, but it will be interesting to watch them try to explain themselves.

We in The Mark Newsroom hope there is an election sometime soon, if only so we can all stop speculating about it. Seriously, the suspense is killing us.