The last federal election campaign was one of the longest in Canadian history. But if you thought the 78-day election of 2015 was a prolonged drama, wait until you see what’s in store for next year. Essentially, the political year of 2019 will be a three-act play.There’s the official campaign, due to kick off in early to mid-September, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits the Governor General and kicks off Canada’s 43rd election, set for Oct. 21.Then there’s the newly established “pre-election campaign,” which is now a formal time period under election-reform legislation passed by MPs and senators just before they left for the Christmas break. This new pre-election period, which features rules of engagement and spending limits for all political participants, gets underway on June 30, meaning that politicians of all stripes will be electioneering in earnest on the usual summer barbecue circuit.And then there’s the unofficial, election-positioning period for 2019, which starts pretty much as soon as the New Year’s festivities are over. In other words, almost all of 2019 — 294 days, if you like — will be an election year in federal politics.Long election campaigns can be brutal on political players but they can be good citizenship exercises. The 2015 campaign, for instance, resulted in a marked increase in voter turnout — a nearly 10-percentage-point increase over the 2011 turnout numbers, and much of it because of a surge in participation from young people and Indigenous Canadians. Read More: Tories leading 2018 fundraising race, though Liberals gaining ground Andrew Scheer is not planning to lose next year’s election‘Virtually impossible’ to prevent foreign meddling in 2019 election, Karina Gould saysThat lengthy campaign also featured some significant debates over policy and issues, such as whether Canadians’ thinking about deficits had evolved, or how open this countr ...
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