Much is often made of how slowly the wheels of justice seem to turn. But it’s the slow-turning wheels of democracy that should give us pause this week — and the week after, and perhaps even seven months down the road.
We’re not talking about the glacial pace of senate reform here, though that’s worthy of all the column inches it can get (Justin Trudeau’s no-more-Liberal-senators stunt notwithstanding).
We’re talking about the fact that the citizens of Athabasca and beyond will be without effective representation in Parliament for months.
No byelection has yet been called for the MP seat left vacant by Brian Jean (or, as many of our readers called him according to a recent Advocate poll, “Brian who?”). Yes, you may have found Jean’s methods of staying in touch with the man on the Athabasca street left something to be desired. In fact, you may have found he had little time for Athabascans full stop, aside from astoundingly regular mailouts that filled up your PO box and made excellent gerbil cage liner.
But at least when Jean was in office, the prospect of maybe sometimes having someone go to bat for us on Parliament Hill seemed real, if distant.
Now, we’ve got no one, and the Conservative government doesn’t seem to feel a particularly pressing need to fill the seat in a timely fashion. And really, why would they? The Athabasca-Fort McMurray riding (and the new ridings into which it will be split in the next general election) is as close to a sure bet as ridings come. The odds of constituents feeling agitated enough to vote for another party are slim to none.
Still, agitated is what we should be. The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada was only informed of the vacancy last Thursday, nearly a week after Jean retired. The lag is even more puzzling when you consider it’s likely government insiders had some intimation of Jean’s intentions before he issued a public statement Jan. 10. The Chief Electoral Officer must now wait at least 11 days (and as long as six months) before calling a byelection, and at least 36 more days must pass before the election can actually be held.
At a minimum, we’ll be waiting until the end of March to go to the polls.
Staff at what was formerly Jean’s office say they are still happy to deal with constituents’ concerns, so let’s let them know that chief amongst those concerns is a timely byelection.
