Editorial: It’s time for a federal election

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We are normally against early elections, especially when drawing the writs is a strategy to “time” a vote in the interest of the incumbent party. Yet, the current national political situation is making us think it’s time to end the current Parliament.

Liberal party fortunes are now so grim, they are launching into a new entitlement program to save their relationship with the New Democrats, who’ve insisted on legislating national pharmacare.

The bill before the House is only the first stage and will not fully nationalize drug coverage. But doing so eventually is the goal: namely, to create a single-payer system akin to Medicare.

It’s a terrible idea at any time. But with Ottawa posting $50-billion deficits, inflation still high and interest rates at a level not seen in more than a generation, the choice to go down this path right now couldn’t be more irresponsible.

The pharmacare debacle is just one piece of this. According to a new Leger poll, sponsored by the National Post, 70 per cent of Canadians surveyed agree that “everything is broken right now,” including 43 per cent of Liberal voters. Overall, 59 per cent said they were angry at how the country is being managed.

(The poll was conducted via online panel between Feb. 23 and 25, including 1,590 respondents. It is not a probability sample, but such a sample of the same size would carry a margin of error of 2.51 per cent, 19 times out of 20.)

Justin Trudeau needs to read the room here. If the Liberals had a majority government, the argument would be less convincing. But we now have a lame duck prime minister heading a minority regime, and a Liberal party eager to do everything it can to reverse its current position in the polls.

This is not a combination that will lead to good governance. If the prime minister had good sense, he would send Canadians to the polls instead of dragging us through an untenable political situation. It’s time for a vote.