COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, EAST TORONTO OFFICE. AUGUST 4, 2021. In the capital cities of both Canada and Ontario in the middle of the summer of 2021 – and who knows where else from coast to coast to coast – there have lately been rising rumours of a Canadian federal election very soon.

The mood as of August 1 was summarized by Abbas Rana at the Hill Times : “With politicos across the country caught in election fever, Liberal MPs, candidates, and campaign managers are preparing for an election campaign to get started on Aug. 8 or Aug. 15, with the election date set to be Sept. 13 or Sept. 20 … ‘Be ready for the writ to be dropped on Aug. 8’ is the message I’m getting from cabinet ministers and MPs,” said one Liberal source who spoke to The Hill Times … ”

Then on August 2 Glenda Luymes at the Vancouver Sun somewhat complicated the picture – and, it may be, wisely enough. (The current Prime Minister Trudeau from Montreal has closer personal ties to Vancouver than Toronto, etc.)

Ms Luymes reported on the views of “Hamish Telford, a political-science professor at the University of the Fraser Valley,” and “Richard Johnston, a political-science professor at UBC..” As she explained broadly : “The Liberals need to believe they can pick up about a dozen more seats in the 338-seat House of Commons to win a majority. If that calculation comes up short, they may abandon the idea of a snap election for now.”

She went on : “Telford said the Liberals may avoid calling the federal election before Aug. 17, when Nova Scotia holds its provincial election … The party may also face internal pressure to hold off until late October when MPs elected in 2015 will achieve six years of service and therefore be eligible for a government pension … Johnston said that an average of recent polls shows the Liberals with a substantial lead over their opponents, but he questioned whether the party is really as ahead as they suggest.”

There has in fact been some Liberal slippage in the most recent polls. A bare majority in the 338-member Canadian House of Commons today is 170 seats. Back on July 13, when our excellent Citizen X in the Kawartha wilderness last reported on all this, Éric Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker was suggesting that if a federal election were held then the Liberals would manage a very slender majority of 171 seats. Philippe Fournier’s 338Canada polling survey prophesied an even more slender bare majority of 170 seats.

On July 29, reflecting new polls, CBC Poll Tracker reduced the Trudeau Liberals to 169 seats. On July 25 338Canada had gone even further, putting the Liberals down to 164 seats. Stirring the pot a little more (and a little more confusingly), Grenier’s latest CBC update on August 3 put the Liberals up very slightly again to a bare majority of 170 seats, while as of August 1 Fournier’s 338Canada had Justin Trudeau’s party down to a mere 163 seats.

What do we think here in the East Toronto office? Is ‘Be ready for the writ to be dropped on Aug. 8’ – on the money? Or will the election be later in the fall?? Or none of the above??? We assembled our usual Group of Seven over coffee this afternoon. And here’s how this preliminary local vote divided : ELECTION MID TO LATE SEP 2021 – 3 ; ELECTION LATE FALL (NOV/DEC?) 2021 – 3 ; ELECTION SPRING 2022 (OR LATER) – 1.

We will at least know soon whether ELECTION MID TO LATE SEP 2021 is the right answer. On the calculations of Abbas Rana at the Hill Times, if we haven’t heard that the prime minister has (in a misleading if apparently popular phrase) “dropped the writ” by a week this coming Sunday, the election won’t be quite so soon!

But the politicos currently caught up in election fever will still be able to prepare for a potential really big vote of all the people sometime in the fall. (And on one authentic story, the real national sport in Canada is not hockey. It’s “Westminster” parliamentary democratic elections, regardless of how many of us also say we don’t really need another one right now.)