Canadian voters can mark Oct. 19, 2015 on their calendars as the date of the next federal election — but they might want to use a pencil and keep an eraser handy.

OTTAWA — Canadian voters can mark Oct. 19, 2015 on their calendars as the date of the next federal election — but they might want to use a pencil and keep an eraser handy.





The date is a result of a bill introduced in 2006, shortly after the Tories won their first minority government. At the time, then-democratic reform minister Rob Nicholson introduced the legislation to establish precise election dates. Under the bill, which passed in 2007, Canadians are supposed to go to the polls on the third Monday in October, in the fourth calendar year after a general election.





As it happened, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn't follow the bill's guidance.





In 2008, Harper convinced the then-governor general that Parliament had become dysfunctional and should be dissolved, sending Canadians to the ballot boxes.





Advocacy group Democracy Watch soon asked the Federal Court to rule that the prime minister had broken his own election law.





The court sided with the government, noting that nothing in the law affected the powers of the governor general, including the power to dissolve Parliament. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the decision, and when Democracy Watch asked the Supreme Court of Canada to weigh in, the request was rejected.





So, "unless (Harper) decides to observe the law, it's not worth the paper it's written on," said Errol Mendes, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. "He already proved you can get around the law."





But Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's Office said the government will follow the law.





"Canada has a law in place for fixed election dates, brought in by our government," said Sara MacIntyre. "We have no plans to change this."





According to the Constitution, the longest a government can sit without an election is five years. So some wait to see if Harper will extend his majority past the next fixed election date, which is in under five years.





"He can ignore the next election date," Mendes argued. "He ignored it with the 2008 election, and the weakness of the law was reinforced with the Federal Court's decision."





But aside from Harper's move to an early election in 2008 (the opposition, not Harper, spurred the 2011 election), there's no reason to believe the Conservatives will skirt the law, said Dennis Pilon, who teaches Canadian politics at the University of Victoria.





Fixed election dates have been successfully legislated in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories and New Brunswick. Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan have passed legislation and will be having their first fixed-date elections this year.





"Here in B.C., the provincial Liberals have stuck to their fixed election date like clockwork," Pilon said. "(But) if the PM has any reason not to stick to the fixed election date, there is really nothing stopping him from ignoring it."







Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/decision-canada/Critics+fear+Harper+will+flout+fixed+election/4812415/story.html#ixzz1N3tBv44V

the Conservative Party of Canada conflict brewing over voting rules.

A battle is shaping up inside Tory ranks ahead of the party's national convention next month, once again pitting members of the old Canadian Alliance party against former Progressive Conservatives in Quebec and Atlantic Canada, the Canadian Press has learned.




The matter has even prompted Defence Minister Peter MacKay, one of the founding fathers of the Conservative party, to speak out in a letter to fellow Conservatives.



At issue is the "deal-breaker" policy that brought the two parties together in 2003 — the concept that all riding associations would be treated equally during a leadership and policy conventions no matter how many members they had.



The rule was important to Progressive Conservatives because it would keep a check on the power of large western Canadian associations that could easily swamp a leadership vote.



Delegate voting rule

From the Conservative Party of Canada constitution:



7.5 The following shall be entitled to vote as delegates to a national convention:

7.5.1 an equal number not exceeding 10 from each electoral district association elected in such number and in such manner as determined by National Council which shall include a requirement that at least one such delegate reflect youth participation, and as an additional delegate the president of the electoral district association as of a date set by National Council;

One proposed amendment, from Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's electoral district association, would rewrite that subsection this way (changed or new wording in bold):



7.5.1 Each electoral district with 100 or more members in good standing will be allocated a maximum of ten delegates, elected in such manner as determined by National Council, which shall include a requirement that at least one such delegate reflect youth participation, and as an additional delegate the president of the electoral district association as of the date set by National Council. Electoral districts with fewer than 100 members in good standing will be allocated one delegate per ten members up to a maximum of nine delegates, also elected in such manner as determined by National Council.

Kady O'Malley has more on the proposed party constitution changes, including full list of submissions, in her blog.

But now several riding associations, including Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's and Ontario MP Scott Reid's, want to alter the rules to move the party toward a system closer to that of "one member, one vote." Both Kenney and Reid were former Canadian Alliance members.



MacKay, who has fought aggressively at previous conventions against such amendments to the party's constitution, is calling on riding presidents to keep the proposals from even making it to the convention floor.



'Divisive debate' not needed: MacKay

"This is a divisive debate our Party does not need to have again, having rejected similar proposals in our founding agreement, and at two national conventions," MacKay wrote on May 17 in an email obtained by The Canadian Press and CBC News.



"Our membership has repeatedly spoken on this issue, and we should treat the matter as closed and move on to building upon our cross-Canada successes instead of weakening the foundation upon which those successes have been built."



Quebec Tories are also angry about the amendments, with some viewing it as the possible final nail in coffin of the party in the province after a disappointing election campaign there. Already, riding association presidents fear they won't be able to encourage dispirited members to be delegates at the June convention.



"Quebecers see it as them being forced out of the party," said Peter White, a longtime party member and riding association president in the Quebec riding of Brome-Mississquoi.



"I think it would be terrible, it would be a disaster."



White also calls the moves shortsighted, saying the numbers of members in a particular riding association goes up and down over different periods of time.



Bernard Cote, riding association president in a Montreal-area riding, said he was alarmed by the resolutions.



"We want to ensure that we'll be able to elect a leader who is representative of all the regions of the country, and that's why we insist on the rule of the equality of the ridings," Cote said.



But Ontario MP Gord Brown, a supporter of the equality of the ridings, doubts that the issue will occupy much space at the convention.



"I don't think this is going to be a big issue," Brown said. "What they're really going to do is celebrate the election victory."



Weighting of ridings proposed

Under the current system, each electoral district association is weighted the same when it comes to calculating support for a leadership contestant.



The proposal from Reid's association, according to party documents obtained by The Canadian Press, would weight the votes from an association based on how many members they have.



Kenney's riding is proposing that only associations that had 100 or more members in good standing would get to send the full slate of delegates to a convention.



"The reason for the amendment is that there is a sense of inequality in some ridings with respect to equal voting rights for all ridings when some ridings are larger than other ones, and other memberships in various ridings are in relative terms quite small," said John MacNeil, former president of the Calgary Southeast Conservative association.



"There's a sense of lack of proportionality."



Such a change to the constitution would take the support of a majority of delegates and a majority of delegates from each of the individual provinces.



Reid did not immediately return a message, nor did the Conservative Party of Canada.

Ontario's deputy chief coroner has been told she was wrong to exclude controversial prison videos of forced injections at the Ashley Smith inquest underway in Toronto.

Ontario'sdeputy chief coroner has been told she was wrong to exclude controversial prison videos of forced injections at the Ashley Smith inquest underway in Toronto.



A panel of judges ruled Thursday Dr. Bonita Porter made a mistake by not reviewing and including the prison videos recorded in prison just months before Ashley Smith died in her cell. (Courtesy of Ashley Smith's family)

A panel of three judges with Ontario's Divisional Court ruled Thursday that Dr. Bonita Porter made a mistake by not reviewing and including the prison videos recorded at Joliette Institution in Quebec just three months before Smith died in her cell.



The videos depict medical staff threatening and forcibly injecting the troubled 19-year-old New Brunswick teen with anti-psychotic drugs against her will, which one psychiatrist described as illegal.



The incident happened just three months before she strangled herself at Grand Valley Institution near Kitchener, Ont. Smith had spiralled into despair, having been transferred between prisons 17 times in the final 11 months of her life.



The coroner originally refused to even look at the videos of the forced injections, ruling they were not relevant to the girl's state of mind at the time of her death.



But the court struck down that decision Thursday, stating that given the coroner's own expanded scope at the inquest it is difficult to understand why the coroner would conclude that the videos are irrelevant. Refusing the family access to these videos amounts to a denial of natural justice and runs the risk of having to repeat the inquest process, the court ruled.



Lawyers for Smith's family are now calling on the coroner to issue summons for all the videos recorded during the injections, and also during each of her 17 prison transfers, so they can be played for the inquest jury.

Sowing the seeds of discontent in the Conservative Party of Canada,

Louis XIV, the French Sun King, once remarked that for every vacant office he filled, he created 10 malcontents and one ingrate. Stephen Harper may discover the harsh truth of that statement for himself, as his backbench MPs begin to realize that this is as good as it is likely to get.




The new Cabinet unveiled by the Prime Minister Wednesday was familiar to the point of contempt. Mr. Harper said his main focus was on continuity, with changes limited largely to replacing those ministers who retired or were defeated in the election. The existing deck was shuffled to move John Baird to Foreign Affairs and Tony Clement to Treasury Board, where he will be charged with cutting $4-billion a year from the government’s $80-billion a year direct spending budget.

 
 
The necessity of geographic balance meant promotions for two Quebec ministers, Christian Paradis, who becomes Industry Minister, and Denis Lebel, who takes the Transport portfolio, as well as the welcome reintroduction of Maxime Bernier to Small Business and Tourism, and Steven Blaney to Veterans Affairs. Quebecers can hardly bleat – they rejected the Conservatives and still ended up with 80% of the provincial Tory caucus in Cabinet.




British Columbians have more reason to question their representation at the top table, having seen their number drop from six to four ministers.



Ed Fast, the Abbotsford MP first elected in 2006 but relatively faceless since then, was given a huge promotion to become International Trade minister – a move that may give some hope to backbenchers whose happy place is a vision of riding in a government limousine.



The line from the Harper government was this a new ministry that will govern for all Canadians – particularly, it seems, those Canadians who voted en masse for the Conservatives for the first time. The Cabinet included new faces from a range of faiths and ethnicities, including Joe Oliver, a Jewish former investment dealer from Toronto, as the new Natural Resources minister; Tim Uppal from Edmonton as the new Minister of State for Democratic Reform; Alice Wong from Richmond as the new Minister of State for Seniors; and Bal Gosal from Bramalea as the new Minister of State for Sport.



Such blatant pandering is understandable, given the Tories’ electoral success, but it is unlikely to sit well with the legions of Tory MPs (I counted 86) who have been waiting patiently on the backbenches for their chance to shine. Two pale male veterans – Rob Merrifield and Rob Moore – were demoted to free up room for the new appointments.



As one person with inside knowledge of the Tory caucus put it: “I think the issue is now all the egos sitting on the backbenches. The bitching won’t start until the fall – everyone will be too impressed with their new Blackberries and travel points. But wait for it.”



This may, in part, explain why Mr. Bernier is back in Cabinet. Anyone with leadership ambitions and time on their hands could find fertile ground to sow discontent in the coming years.



Mr. Harper admitted he is finding it increasingly difficult to craft a Cabinet, as his caucus grows. It has been an incredibly disciplined group since winning government five years ago – the combination of a tight leash from the Prime Minister’s Office and MPs willingness to sanctify themselves. But the Tories are now in the promised land and disillusionment beckons for those who see themselves as Cabinet material – which is all of them.



If he is to keep his governing coalition intact, Mr. Harper could do worse than spend his down-time reading (or re-reading) Doris Kearns Goodwin’s masterful biography of Abraham Lincoln: Team of Rivals. Lincoln’s political genius, she wrote, stemmed from “the ability to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failure of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from his mistakes.”



To be sure, the Prime Minister is no Abraham Lincoln. One former Cabinet minister told me he never got to know the man behind the icy exterior. But, having nullified the immediate threat from the opposition parties, Mr. Harper is going to have to spend more time on Cabinet and caucus management, if he wants to avoid creating an enemy within.

The federal election campaign appears to have revived Canadians' passion for politics Angus Reid .

The federal election campaign appears to have revived Canadians' passion for politics.




Vancouver-based Angus Reid pollsters have discovered Canadians became more hopeful about politics as the decisive election campaign raged on.



Canadians' revved-up regard for the democratic process held firm even after Stephen Harper's Conservatives won their first majority and the New Democrats for the first time became the official Opposition.



More than 61 per cent of the population told Angus Reid pollsters after the election they were "proud to be Canadian."



"The respect for politicians actually went up during the election campaign. People got engaged," Angus Reid pollster Andrew Grenville said.



Almost half the population agreed a "Conservative majority will be good for Canada," with a solid 64 per cent applauding the NDP's Jack Layton (below left) moving into Stornoway, the Opposition leader's official residence.



Soon after the May 2 election, more than seven out of 10 people agreed that "federal politicians are working very hard to help create a better Canada."



Check out how religion and ethnicity shaped the results



Even though Angus Reid's pollsters sensed fresh political vitality in its survey of 1,019 Canadians, they also found some still harbour distrust of the electoral process.



Almost half of Canadians would prefer some form of proportional representation to our first-past-the-post system, which has allowed the Conservatives and Liberals to form majorities with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote.



In addition, almost two out of three Canadians (and British Columbians) favour "mandatory voting" like in Australia.



Another harbinger of change may be found in how 43 per cent of Canadians support the NDP and Greens forming a coalition, with another 37 per cent backing an NDP-Liberal merger. Of Liberals, a strong two-thirds wanted to join the NDP.



Angus Reid performed an additional experiment to measure Canadians' political pulse, which wound up suggesting the media need to do more to bring citizens into the political process.



An online Angus Reid poll during the live English leaders' debate consistently found viewers expressing strong "annoyance" when the politicians attacked each other.



At the same time, the second-by-second polling revealed Canadians appreciated hearing the politicians' views on issues such as Canada's military role in Afghanistan.



Grenville believes Canadian TV debates could be designed more like U.S. presidential debates, where candidates are discouraged from interrupting.



In further efforts to measure the nation's character, Angus Reid divided Canadians into intriguing clusters of political personalities, such as the "Invigorated Right" and "Serious Cynics."



Angus Reid found 20 per cent of Canadians are part of the law-and-order "Invigorated Right," three-quarters of whom voted Conservative.



At the other end of the spectrum, the pollsters characterized 13 per cent of Canadians as optimistic "Mid-Left Hopefuls," almost half of whom cast their ballots for the NDP.



The biggest cluster - the "Mistrustful Middle" who make up one-third of the electorate - split their vote between the Conservatives, NDP and, to a lesser extent, the Liberals.



Another 18 per cent of Canadians, dubbed "Dashed-Hope Citizens," believe the country is motoring down the wrong track; they avoided the Conservatives and equally supported the NDP and Liberals.



Meanwhile, the "Serious Cynics," the 14 per cent of Canadians who are jaded about the status quo, strongly backed the NDP, handing the party 46 per cent of their ballots.



{Readers can find out their political type by taking the short online Angus Reid quiz at http: //elections.angusreidforum.com).



The polling company's survey also revealed that Canadians generally hold liberal values, except when it comes to serious crime.



Almost four out of five Canadians, but slightly fewer British Columbians, say the courts "need to give much tougher sentences to all those convicted of criminal acts."



However, most Canadians balked at jailing people for minor offences such as breaking and entering, saying: "It does more harm than good."



The live-and-let-live views of Canadians came out strongly on sexual morality, with 83 per cent of Canadians agreeing "the lifestyles of gay and lesbian people are just as valid as those of heterosexual people."



However, Canadians aren't opposed to government intervention on non-bedroom-related issues. Three-quarters of Canadians want stricter environmental regulations, saying they're "worth the cost."



Another 68 per cent of Canadians believe governments need to provide more financial aid to the poor, suggesting most Canadians don't oppose political action for the common good.



Finally, even though a majority of Canadians supported various tax cuts, only one out of five agreed that "government debt should be reduced, even if it means cuts in health care."



While cynicism about politics seems to be common on radio talk shows and blogs, these poll results suggest Canadians have not at all given up on the potential of politics.



Scroll through more Canadian-based polls on politics, religion and immigration

Federal prison officials want to keep hidden all reports and videos describing teen inmate Ashley Smith until the inquest into her jail cell death is over, an Ontario coroner was told Monday.

Federal prison officials want to keep hidden all reports and videos describing teen inmate Ashley Smith until the inquest into her jail cell death is over, an Ontario coroner was told Monday.




Lawyers for the family and media representatives, including the Toronto Star, called this ban “unprecedented” and “Orwellian.”



“The acronym CSC (for Correctional Service of Canada) should properly stand for Conceal, Suppress and Contain,” Smith family lawyer Julian Falconer told the court.



A jury will begin hearing evidence Tuesday. More than 30,000 pages of documents and numerous prison videos will be entered as evidence during the inquest, which is expected to last into the fall.



The groups gathered at coroner’s court in Toronto on Monday for what was supposed to be a routine hearing to discuss how the media and public would access these court exhibits.



But the eleventh-hour motion from the prison service complicated matters.



Presiding Coroner Dr. Bonita Porter told the court she would hear the prison service’s arguments next Tuesday. She also deferred her decision on a request to blur the faces of all correctional staff in prison videos that may be copied for the media and the public. The request came from Travis McDonald, a guard at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener who was on duty when Smith, 19, tied a ligature around her neck and choked to death while staff watched on Oct. 19, 2007.



Smith was punted to the federal system at age 18 to serve out the remainder of her youth sentence. Labeled a difficult inmate, she served most of her time in segregation cells across the country, wearing little more than what the prison service calls a tear-proof suicide smock. The native of Moncton, N.B., was first jailed at 15 after throwing crab apples at a mailman.



The inquest jury will hear its first witness on Tuesday.



Acting detective Patrick Colagiovanni is expected to take most of the day describing Smith’s life story before her federal incarceration.



Five videos depicting Smith’s interactions with staff at Grand Valley Institution are also expected to be shown this week.



While Porter decides whether to allow the prison service’s request to bar the media from getting copies of any reports and videos filed in court until after the jury delivers its verdict, she instructed reporters to fill out a court form requesting materials.



The Smith family is still awaiting a Divisional Court decision after challenging Porter’s earlier ruling on graphic videos showing the young inmate forcibly injected with tranquilizers and strapped to a metal gurney for nearly 12 hours without food, water or a clean tampon at Joliette Institution in Quebec. Additional videos, which the Smith family wanted the jury to see but Porter excluded, show Smith duct-taped to the seat of a plane by a pilot during one of more than a dozen prison transfers between institutions across the country.



The Divisional Court will determine whether the coroner erred in failing to compel the prison service to turn over these videos.

Peter Milliken, the soon-to-be-former Speaker of the House of Commons, says Canada's political party leaders have more authority than they need.

Peter Milliken, the soon-to-be-former Speaker of the House of Commons, says Canada's political party leaders have more authority than they need.




In a farewell interview with the CBC, Milliken said a system has developed over time that means a leader has too much say over rank-and-file MPs.



Before the most recent election, held May 2, Milliken stepped down after more than 20 years as a Liberal member of Parliament and a decade at the helm of the House.



As the longest serving Speaker in Canada's history, he has some ideas on how to make Parliament work better. Right now, he said, the leaders of all parties wield too much authority — over everything from which MPs sit on committees to what is said in question period.



"And if your views aren't in accordance with the leader's position on an issue, you will not be speaking on that issue in the House and you won't be asking questions on that issue in the House," Milliken said, in the interview broadcast Saturday on CBC Radio’s The House.



He proposed giving party caucuses more say in such matters and more say in choosing party leaders.



He also said that parties should not be so fixated on unity, and that it's OK if differing opinions are made public.




"They'll try things procedurally they wouldn't bother trying in a majority situation," he said.



Memorable rulings

Some of Milliken's rulings will go down in history.



He found there was evidence that International Development Minister Bev Oda misled Parliament when she said she did not know who had ordered funding to a foreign aid charity cut, only to later tell Parliament that she had ordered the change.



Milliken also forced the ruling Conservatives to find a way to release documents on the Afghan detainee issue, although those documents have yet to be made public.



He also ruled against the government on the matter of producing certain financial documents. That ruling led to the opposition's contempt motion that brought down the government.