Newfie Squid Game Update
When is the next election happening?
Still the same question.
When is the next election?
Still the same answer: Who knows the mind of a squid?
We are just talking about a different Head Squid. Andrew Furey then. John Hogan Now.
“An election has to take place by the middle of October,” someone at VOCM wrote on Tuesday after speaking to Hogan. “and the Liberal Party has been busy the last few weeks with its preparations, calling nominations in numerous districts and announcing their candidates.”
“When asked if he will give any sort of indication as to when the writ will be dropped, Hogan, unsurprisingly, remained coy, stating that the election will be ‘on or before October 14th.’”
Hogan unsurprisingly coy about confirming the date of an election we are supposed to known in advance because it is… what’s word for it?… oh yeah,… fixed.
And whoever wrote the story knew the date because they wrote that the election “has to take place” by the middle of October.
So why was Hogan ducking the question? Why was he coy and why would *anyone* with a brain think that the coyness was something to expect? You know rather than - as normal people likely thought - pretty freakin’ weird.
Before we get to that let’s understand that there is no fixed election date law in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The plain meaning of the plain words that are the very first sentence of the changes Danny Williams’ Pea Seas pushed through the House of Assembly in 2004 say that regardless of what comes in the rest of the section, the Lieutenant-Governor may dissolve the House of Assembly and call an election in the way that elections get called in Newfoundland and Labrador going back to 1855.
Here are the actual words from the House of Assembly Act on the duration of the House of Assembly:
“Notwithstanding another provision of this section, the Lieutenant-Governor may, by proclamation in [His] Majesty's name, prorogue or dissolve the House of Assembly when the Lieutenant-Governor sees fit.”
No fixed date for elections. The Premier can toddle off to see the LG any day, any time and advise the LG to dissolve the House and call an election as they always have back to 1855 (except for the Interregnum Commission).
What’s more, there’s nothing there to force any Premier to use the Second Tuesday of October every four years or for that matter to even call it on that day every four years.
So right out of the gate, the idea there is a fixed election date in Newfoundland and Labrador is a scam, a fraud, a lie, a popular misconception, or whatever other words you want to use for it.
That said, let’s get into this a bit more deeply. The reason everybody is wondering about when the election is going to happen this year is because we actually haven’t had an election on the second Tuesday of October for the past three elections. In fact, we have only had two elections since the law changed in 2004 that followed the Danny model: 2007 and 2011. In 2015 Paul Davis’ went off late so as not to conflict with a federal election. In 2019, Dwight Ball went off months and months early with an excuse about avoiding a conflict with a federal election.
In 2021, Andrew Furey called an election in the middle of winter in the middle of a pandemic and things did not go well. Furey’s election was interesting because according to the Second Tuesday every 48 months model, we weren’t due an election until 2023 with the next one coming after that in 2027. Having an election in 2025 is actually shagged up entirely, all because of Andrew Furey in 2021.
Anyway, there was no reason for Furey to go to the polls at all *if( fixed election dates were such a fetish of his as they were until he quit just recently. The idea of a new Premier needing a mandate is part of the egotistical nonsense Danny Williams used to justify his fiddling in 2004. That’s now become part of the political mythology and so every new Premier needs an election and we are all over the place. Furey could have carried on governing on his own agenda when he took office in 2020 and gone to the polls on schedule in the fall of 2023.
Had he won the election, likely with a majority, he could have quit a year or 18 months later - exactly as he did - and then we’d be looking at an election in 2027 with lots of time to sort out a new leader for the Liberals. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark without Indy. Same outcome. If you want any evidence that Furey never thought anything through in his political life and that his reasons for having an election in 2021 and quitting suddenly in 2025 were bullshit, there it is.
Go a bit further. This idea of leaders needing an electoral mandate is just drivel. In Britain after 2010, the Conservatives went through a string of Prime Ministers - five, in total from Dodgy Dave Cameron to Rishi Sunak - and a batch of hung parliaments without going to the polls each time the party in power found a new leader.
Danny Williams’ Trumpish friggin’ around has serious consequences. In Newfoundland and Labrador, by contrast to the United Kingdom, we’ve gone through all sorts of leadership games in governing parties just to avoid triggering another of Danny’s mucked up election rules about the need to have an election a year after picking a new leader unless that’s within a year before the imaginary fixed election date. That’s a pack of foolishness too. The wording of that part of the House of Assembly Act only says the Premier has 12 months from taking office to advise the LG of the date of the next election. Doesn’t say what the advice should be. Just says the Premier has to give advice. Had Furey in 2020 advised the LG to hold an election on schedule for the second Tuesday in October, 2023, he’d have met the literal meaning of the Danny doodles and there’d be no way legally or politically to force an election any sooner.
This is the guy who brought you Muskrat Falls and on both that and every other cock-a-doodle looney thing Williams did, it’s not like someone didn’t warn you about it at the time.
Don’t wait until October.
John Hogan doesn’t have that luxury of telling the LG we’ll be going to the polls even a year from now. The longest a legislature can go between general elections is five years and Furey left it until the worst time to quit. He’d already decided to push off the election for the spring he’d pushed off twice before. That left his successor with only the possibility of going in the fall of 2025 or pushing it to the limit and having a disastrous winter election forced on the hapless Liberals by the constitution. The Fureys, father and son, frigged Hogan and the rest of the Liberals royally.
Still, since Andrew Furey talked about October when he quit and Hogan is apparently on the same track, you have to scratch your head why he simply didn’t tell VOCM that October 14 was the day, as even the dimmest could figure out by reading a few words. Again, no legit reason not to do that. Clearly Hogan isn’t thinking of going later than October since he told VO “on or before” in a very lawyerish way of putting it.
Going *after* October 14 actually makes more sense. There’s no way to squat an election in this month (July) and next month (August) is taken up with the Canada Games. September looks open but isn’t since the municipal elections across the province happen on October 2. That means the month of September is taken up with municipal campaigning. No matter how you slice it, having a provincial election on or before October 14 runs into all sorts of problems, not the least of which is forcing everyone to vote in a provincial and and municipal election at the same time.
The most sensible time for an election would be *after* the early bit of October. That would mean dissolving the House and calling the election before Thanksgiving with polling day (really counting day) 21 to 28 days out from that. Now that Hogan has trapped himself into that October 14 date, he really is jammed up hard. All the more reason to think that none of the Liberals in the Confederatio Trust - either the Brain Trust or Hogan’s Heroes - have actually thought any of this through.
What a surprise.
Coming next week:
Monday: Alberta declares war on the Newfies
Wednesday: Quebec’s border war
Friday: Something subspicious this way comes