Tonight, the House of Commons will vote in a law binding them to respect Canada’s Kyoto commitments. This is quite remarkable since it is being done against the government’s will, making it difficult to really predict how it’s passage will be interpreted. Given that it will cost a lot of money to meet Kyoto and that the environment has become such a major issue, the government would certainly be in their right to see this as a loss of confidence and call an election over it. If the Conservatives simply call it a “nuisance bill” and ignore it, the opposition parties would certainly be in their right to bring forward a non-confidence motion and defeat the government on it.

I still don’t think we’ll see an election until 2008, but if anyone is itching for a spring vote, the mechanism to get there is certainly in place.