It's crucial for Canadian democracy that a federal election be called in the next few seconds, if not sooner.
Why?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says so, that's why.
Or more specifically the prime minister says he can no longer effectively govern with a minority Conservative government; hence the need for a snap election which Harper predicts will result in another minority Conservative government.
On the surface that reasoning might sound a little nonsensical.
But don't forget we have a parliamentary system here in Canada which means when it comes to calling an election the prime minister doesn't have to make sense.
In fact, according to ancient British legal tradition, the Canadian prime minister has the right to call an election, as ancient British lawyers would say, "whenever he darn well feels like it."
Still there's one important question which needs to be asked: "Didn't Prime Minister Harper pass legislation giving Canada a fixed election date, and wasn't that date October 2009, and isn't October 2009 more than a year from now?
Okay, that's actually three questions, but they still need to be asked.
Luckily, Canada's leading constitutional experts have carefully studied the legality of this matter and come up with a solid, irrefutable conclusion: Nobody cares about the opinion of leading constitutional experts.
What does matter is politics.
And being a good politician Harper realizes a quick election call will throw off the timing of his most dangerous political opponent, Canada's angry artists.
Canada's artists are angry with the prime minister because he cut back on certain government cultural and artistic handouts.
These cutbacks have "horrified" and "shocked" the country's artistic community, horror and shock being the natural reaction of artists when faced with the prospect of having to get a real job.
That's why Canada's artists have pledged to bring down the Harper government and bring to power the man they are really excited about: Barack Obama.
So far, the only thing holding back their campaign is that poets are having a hard time coming up with nasty words which rhyme with "Harper."
They blame the government cutbacks.
Of course, also important from Harper's view is that a quick election call will catch the Liberal Party unprepared.
For one thing, it will mean the Liberals won't have time to dream up a better campaign slogan, which right now is the accurate but slightly uninspired: "Stephane Dion, he's not as wimpy as you think."
However, I believe the most important reason Harper wants a quick election has to do with us voters.
Just think about it.
HORDES ARRIVING
Let's say we had a fixed election date and voters could pinpoint a year ahead of time the exact day when hordes of annoying politicians would start showing up on their doorsteps to grovel for votes.
What would voters do?
Well if voters are anything like me, they would use that year wisely and surround their home with an "anti-politician perimeter" consisting of a moat, barbed wire and high voltage electric fences.
But now with an election call almost upon us it's too late to even find a decent attack dog.
Yes, Prime Minister Harper has thought this out carefully.
That means, like it or not, an election will soon be upon us.
I wonder if it's possible to buy barbed wire on eBay.
