I want an election, oh wouldn’t it be fun? I think you can be can feel the sarcasm in my voice.  What are people thinking?  Did we have an election just last October?  As Rodney King once said  “can’t we just get along “? Aren’t there more salient things for our government to be dealing with versus trading off between one and another over an election?  I think so.

I am pretty sure that cooler heads will prevail, however you never know with a minority Parliament.  It was only back in December that we had all the coalition talk when the Conservatives almost lost government.  I would argue that the Governor General Michale Jean really stretch the Constitution in granting Stephen Harper a prorogue of Parliament.  However I’m no constitutional scholar and I’m sure she had the best advising her to give Stephen Harper a second chance.  Needless to say five months later I don’t think there are any better reasons to send Canadians to the polls.

All of you know that I am not political although from time to time I show up at political events specifically because I’ve been asked to come.   Just recently I was invited to meet Michael Ignatieff, Who knows maybe someday I’ll be invited back to meet Stephen Harper.  For those who love politics is a blood sport and election night is bigger than the Super Bowl.

The single best reason for not having an election is a simple description of modern Canadian political structure.  What I mean by that has to do with the five major political parties in Canada.  As long as we have a Bloc Quebecois, it is extremely difficult for any political party to get a majority government.  Adding to the political equation is the Green party because they take about 10% of the vote nationally further muddying the political voting pool, which ensures nobody gets a majority.  So if lightning struck this coming Friday and the Liberals and Conservatives cannot get along and we tip into an election the smart money says nothing will change.  There are just too many divergent regional views in this country that have the votes to paralyze parliament into minority territory again.  Until the Bloc disappears from our political landscape, I don’t see this ever changing.

Some of you might say take a look at Jean Chretien’s three successive majority governments with the Bloc being in parliament.  That is true, however the Liberals benefited from the split in the conservative movement between the Reform party, Canadian Alliance and the progressive conservative party.  Each election Jean Chretien would get 100 seats from Ontario.  Game over.  It was his prescription for majority victory and it worked very well.  Since the Conservatives have gotten together, Ontario has been split and this has added to the issues of majority government in Canada.

So let’s have a review. These are why don’t we want an election?  We don’t want an election because nothing will change based on the five major parties in our political spectrum and their strength across regional lines.  Forget about it.

However, we all know it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes things just get out of control and our politicians forget just who elected them in the first place.  Sometimes in a minority Parliament accidents happen. Needless to say you can bet that our politicians agree with the scenario I have mapped out in this column.  They have so much market research done and have polls in each region and writing of the country.  It’s simple math and they know it would be very difficult for any of them to get into majority territory.

Unfortunately I don’t think common sense breaking out in Ottawa is something that happens very often.   That’s why one of my favorite basketball legends, former Boston Celtics center Bill Russell used to say after opponents complained that the Celtics always beat them.  Bill Russell would always say, “that’s why they keep score! “  So if everybody agreed with me there would never be an election in the immediate future and everybody would go home.  Something tells me that’s not going to happen either.

I think one of the problems Stephen Harper has is he just isn’t warm.  He comes across as very competent but he certainly doesn’t have Barack Obama charisma and he doesn’t have Michael Ignatieff’s cool demeanor.   Some say he comes across cold.  I’ve met the man and I don’t find to be that way but then again not everybody’s going to agree with me.

Tomorrow Michael Ignatieff and Prime Minister Harper are going to meet.  What’ll be said?  I dunno.  An election you say?  I don’t think so.  I think it makes a lot more sense to come together to make this minority parliament work.