Will lawmakers follow their own law?

Let me preface this post by stating that it is the right of a Lieutenant Governor or Governor General to cause an election to be called at any time. Secondly an election would follow a successful vote of non-confidence in a government. These are long-standing parliamentary practises.
 
Newfoundland and Labrador also has a fixed election date. It is to occur on the 2nd Tuesday of October in the 4th calendar year following the most recent general election. This because of a new law in 2004. The only exception to this is if a Premier resigns before the end of the third year of the term - also enacted in 2004.

This means the fixed election date is replaced with a date not to exceed 12 months following the actual resignation date of the Premier. Once that election is held - regardless of the month, week or day - the election following will revert back to the fixed election date.

Okay let's take the Tory interpretation of this exception.

The Tories would have us believe that they have until they decide to hold a leadership, elect a leader, and swear the person in as Premier before the 12 month clock starts ticking.

Let's say a Premier resigns on October the 5th of the third year of the term. If we take their current actions as a benchmark - it would take them 8 months to select a leader. That would bring us to June of the last year of the term. Then let's say they were quick and swore the new leader in as Premier in June. What they claim is they would have 12 months past June to call an election - in other words 8/9 months later than the fixed election date.

The Tories would have us believe that the law they fondly nicknamed the Roger Grimes law was meant to give an "unelected" Premier even more time in office? Of course not. The whole point the Williams lead government was making is that you can't let an "unelected" Premier run the show - an election must be called. They used the words "unelected" and "illegitimate" Premier to describe Roger Grimes - but at that time it was only political rhetoric. Once the Tories took office - they made it real, legal, and binding regardless of which party formed a government.

The only meaning for the word "afterward" in section 3.1 (the section wherein there is an early resignation of a Premier) could only be related to a fixed date. That date is the resignation date of the Premier. The House of Assembly Act deals with sitting members of the House and the administration of our legislature and government - it has no interest - nor should it - with a Party's business and administration. It deals with Government and is not partisan.

The Act says without debate 12 months - that is a fixed number of months. The Act was giving a time frame relative to another fixed point in time. As the call for nominations and a party leadership process is a movable and a partisan time-frame - it certainly cannot be used as the fixed time frame from which the 12 months follow.

They must call an election by January 24th of 2015 and from there the Elections Act provisions will guide the date options of the election and the rules of the election.

Seriously people - do the people who made the laws - our MHA's - understand the laws they made?  They want your vote in order to make more laws - think about that.