{"id":57775,"date":"2015-08-02T20:54:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T12:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=57775"},"modified":"2015-08-02T20:54:13","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T12:54:13","slug":"ontario-premier-rails-against-harper-for-anticipated-early-election-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/08\/02\/ontario-premier-rails-against-harper-for-anticipated-early-election-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario premier rails against Harper for anticipated early election call"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kathleen<\/a>
Kathleen Wynne (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PENETANGUISHENE, Ontario — One of Canada’s most prominent politicians is lambasting the idea of an early federal election call as “unnecessary” and an affront to taxpayers who will foot the bill.<\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said Saturday that it would be “unfortunate” if the federal Conservatives drop the writ early as expected this weekend.<\/p>\n

She made the comments during a news conference in Penetanguishene where she was visiting a local festival.<\/p>\n

“If the rumours are true, it would be unusual, it would be unnecessary, and it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars,” Wynne said.<\/p>\n

“Modern elections don’t require months and months of electioneering.”<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to pay a visit to Gov. Gen. David Johnston on Sunday to ask that Parliament be dissolved.<\/p>\n

The move would kick off an 11-week campaign up to the Oct. 19 election, one of the longest and most expensive in Canada’s history.<\/p>\n

Wynne pointed out the fact that Ontario’s elections laws limit the provincial election period to 28 days unless otherwise recommended by the chief electoral officer.<\/p>\n

“The point is that politicians cannot manipulate the date or length in our province,” she said.<\/p>\n

“That 28 day limit is respectful of taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill for elections.”<\/p>\n

Federal law requires campaigns to be at least 37 days long, but doesn’t list a maximum length. Elections Canada estimates that a typical 37-day campaign would cost roughly $375-million to administer.<\/p>\n

Recent changes by the Conservative government allow candidate and party spending to increase by as much as $675,000 for every day the campaign extends past 37 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PENETANGUISHENE, Ontario — One of Canada’s most prominent politicians is lambasting the idea of an early federal election call as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":36016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-politics","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}