There was a wonderful editorial cartoon that appeared in a sister publication of this newspaper on Thursday.

It mocked Prime Minister Harper’s grounds for an election by portraying him as a man tossing wrenches into the working gears of Parliament. The point being that his rationale for election is bogus i.e. that Parliament is not working, that Parliamentary Committees are not working. The cartoon message was clear; he and his ministers are the problem. They are obstructing parliamentary procedure, not the opposition.

The reality is that he can’t have his way in Parliament, that Committees are exposing things that he doesn’t want exposed (the Schreiber-Mulroney relationship, the Cadman affair, the in-and-out election financing scheme, etc.) and more importantly that he has nothing more to say.

A new tell-all book by Julie Couillard, former girlfriend of Maxime Bernier, once Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, is due out in October, another reason why Mr. Harper might want an early election. Ms. Couillard allegedly has ties to organized crime.

Mr. Harper claims that Parliament cannot proceed because of a disagreement over the Liberal Opposition’s platform, a platform that is diametrically opposed to everything his government stands for, particularly as relates to climate change and the Liberal’s proposed carbon tax. A difference of opinion over a policy alternative that is not on the legislative floor and subject to parliamentary debate is hardly a compelling reason for a government to throw in the towel and refuse to govern without a new election mandate.

Coincidently, a former mentor and advisor to the Prime Minister, a political scientist from the University of Calgary, Tom Flanagan issued a statement this week suggesting that Harper’s purpose in calling an election is to “destroy the Liberals”.

In his view, Harper doesn’t need to be concerned with gaining a majority, only with regaining minority status and perhaps increasing his seat count. In Flanagan’s view, re-election of a minority Conservative government would throw the Liberals into a long-term tailspin; force them to dump Stéphane Dion.

In that event, according to Flanagan the Liberal party would have to embark on another costly leadership contest, even as some of its 2006 leadership candidates struggle to pay off their past leadership expenses. Moreover, a reduction in popular vote would mean the Liberal Party would receive less money in election-expense rebate, making it difficult to finance future elections. The Flanagan theory is that such turmoil would give Harper a free hand in Parliament, even with a minority.

Shortly after he took office, Stephen Harper introduced legislation to fix election dates. The legislation was passed by Parliament and fixed the next election for October 2009. It would appear that the Prime Minister will over-ride his own legislation by appealing to a loophole in the legislation (enabled by the avoidance of Constitutional change) that only permits the Governor General to dissolve Parliament. Harper will probably ask the GG to dissolve Parliament in the next week or two and it’s unlikely she would refuse, given the likelihood that no other party or combination of parties would be able to form a government.

The Conservatives have booked television time to run (and they are already running) pre-campaign ads before the election call, taking advantage of their money-chest before election-spending limits kick in. In American style, they will attack Stéphane Dion as a risky choice for prime minister and offer little or nothing in the way of new policy initiatives.

If Mr. Harper calls an election before October 2009, he would technically break his own law – proof that we can’t trust him. If Mr. Harper calls an election before the upcoming (four) bye-elections are concluded, he would be telling us that he is afraid of the results and that the bye-elections were called in bad faith, another trust issue.

All of this comes against the background of the U.S. presidential conventions and their pending election campaign. I listened to half a dozen speeches this week from the Democratic convention. They were excellent. All of them better than anything that I have heard in this country for years.

The U.S. election is scheduled for November 4th. A Canadian election running simultaneously but concluding before November 4th would be distracted by the U.S. election and the charismatic Barack Obama, giving Harper and his policies cover from the media and public scrutiny that would ordinarily accrue to a Canadian election.

I have to agree with Mr. Harper.

The time has come for an election in Canada as well. There are matters of trust to be resolved. There are matters of health and safety that need to be dealt with and there are matters of fiscal and environmental policy that need to be addressed.

Let’s get on with it.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com