Introduction
Brian Pallister, Premier of Manitoba after leading the Progressive Conservatives to a parliamentary majority and 53.1% of the popular vote and 40 of 57 seats in April 2016, has decided to ignore Manitoba’s fixed-date election law in the most convoluted – or, perhaps, creative – way up until now. In the six instances where premiers had opted for snap elections instead of waiting for the polling day scheduled under fixed-date election legislation from 2014 to 2019, they had announced plans for an early election very shortly (on the order of a few days at most) before advising the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the legislature and issue the writs of election.
On 19 June, Premier Pallister announced that a general election would take place on 10 September 2019, fully 13 months earlier that the polling day scheduled for October 2020. But because Manitoba’s Election Act specifies that the writ for an unscheduled election must last between 28 and 34 days, the Premier did not advise Lieutenant Governor Filmon in person to dissolve the 41st Legislature and issue the writs of election until 12 August 2019. This unprecedented decision resulted in a de facto election campaign of nearly 90 days despite the de jure writ of 29 days.[1] Pallister had stoked speculation about this early election since December 2018 and tried to make it all more palatable by voluntarily binding his government to the 90-day pre-election prohibition on all but necessary and routine government advertising which under the Election Financing Act currently only applies to the Government of Manitoba in the 90 days preceding a scheduled general election. In so doing, Pallister has also set a precedent for broadening the scope of the Caretaker Convention to at least 4 months.
In this post, I will review the history of Manitoba’s fixed-date election law and its current laws regulating the duration of the writ and pre-election advertising, delve more into how recent legislation and Pallister’s actions will, in practice, expand the scope of the Caretaker Convention, and conclude with an explanation why Pallister took this bizarre staggered approach to announcing an election two months before the dissolution and issuing of writs actually took place.
