A job-creating election

Eric Beauchesne surveys the economic ramifications of an election.

In fact, Statistics Canada’s analysis of changes in employment in the wake of the October 2008 election campaign, suggests an election would create thousands of temporary jobs. "With the federal election in mid-October, there were large employment gains in public administration, spread across most provinces," Statistics Canada said in its analysis of what was a 40,000 increase in full-time employment in October 2008. "Most of the increase was among occupations related to the election process," it added, noting there were no job gains in other areas to explain the surge in employment that month.