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.

Much to Eby’s chagrin, the Conservatives quickly got their act together. Recent polls now show them running neck and neck with, or even ahead of, Eby’s NDP. An Angus Reid poll conducted Oct. 15 to 19 put the Conservatives at 46 per cent support, compared with 43 per cent for the NDP.

And most British Columbians aren’t buying Eby’s rhetoric that the election was needed to take on U.S. President Donald Trump. An Angus Reid poll in early October found that just 10 per cent of respondents considered Trump or U.S. tariffs a top provincial issue.

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. back 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.

But the problem, as we see in Eby’s case, is that governments don’t actually 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 almost never 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 actually 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?

Worse, fixed election dates have actually 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, their governments went further after winning re-election and repealed their provinces’ fixed election date requirements. Other premiers, and the prime minister, should follow their example.

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 generally last for longer than five years. An election must be held within that five-year time frame.

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 actually 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 for Oct. 24, 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.

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.