JAY GOLDBERG: Stop pretending Canada has fixed election dates

Fixed election dates sound great in theory.

Published Oct 01, 2026  •  Last updated 18 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

B.C. NDP Leader David Eby Photo by Jason Payne /Postmedia Network

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British Columbia Premier David Eby recently called a snap election, just two years into a majority mandate, bypassing his own province’s fixed election date legislation, in the hope of winning re-election while his rival Conservatives were in disarray.

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Much to Eby’s chagrin, the Conservatives quickly got their act together. They appointed a new interim leader; the vast majority of MLAs who left under the party’s former leader have since returned, and most British Columbians aren’t buying Eby’s rhetoric that the election was needed to take on U.S. President Donald Trump.

Eby’s decision to call a snap election, just halfway through his majority mandate, raises the question once again of why fixed election dates, which were first passed into law in B.C. in 2001, exist in Canada’s Westminster system.

There’s no denying that fixed election dates sound great in theory. Setting a specific date for the next election was meant to level the playing field between the opposition parties and the government. Over time, every province and the federal government would come to adopt similar legislation.

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But the problem, as we see in Eby’s case, is that governments don’t respect the laws that they pass. Premiers still have the power, under the Constitution, to ask the lieutenant-governor — the King’s representative in the province — to call an election, and that request is rarely denied.

Eby is just the latest to pull such a trick. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, and Prime Minister Mark Carney all did the same thing over the past two years.

All of them tried to rationalize calling an early election. In all three cases, voters looked past the leaders’ decisions to call early elections and ultimately gave them another mandate. Eby may not be so lucky.

But this simply shows that fixed election dates have no teeth. Because there’s literally nothing in fixed election date legislation that stops a premier or prime minister from calling an early election anyway, why have such legislation on the books in the first place and lull the opposition and the public into a false sense of security?

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Worse, fixed election dates have proven to empower incumbents, which is the opposite of what they were intended to do. That’s because opposition parties plan around a set election date, but governments have proven willing to call snap elections whenever they think they’re best positioned to win re-election. The supposed fairness these laws were supposed to bring to Canada’s democracy simply hasn’t materialized.

To the credit of both Ford and Houston, the two premiers introduced legislation following their re-election wins to repeal fixed election date laws in Ontario and Nova Scotia, respectively. Other premiers, and the prime minister, should emulate Ford and Houston.

That doesn’t mean a government would be able to govern endlessly. Canada’s constitution mandates, via the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that no House of Commons or legislative assembly can last for longer than five years. An election must be held within a five-year time frame.

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Sure, in an ideal world everyone would know when the next election is going to be. But if first ministers aren’t willing to respect fixed election date legislation, and clearly they’re not, then the next best thing is to repeal those laws altogether.

Without fixed election dates in place, opposition parties and the public know to stay alert and be prepared for an election at any time. That’s certainly better than pretending we have binding fixed election date rules when we don’t.

For nearly 130 years, Canada operated without fixed election date legislation. B.C. ended that run by introducing Canada’s first such legislation 25 years ago. Eby’s decision to call an election just two years after the last one shows why B.C. should scrap its fixed election date law and why other provinces and the federal government should follow suit.

Dr. Jay Goldberg is a political scientist and a fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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