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Justin Trudeau needs to stop pretending we aren’t already in the middle of an election campaign.

In fact, I think the PM should come back from his trip to the G7 and make it official, call the election.

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Instead I’m hearing the election won’t be called until September 15, which would be the last day Trudeau can call it.

It’s a bizarre technicality that we are not “officially” in an election campaign right now.

We all know that voting day will be October 21 and we know the parties are making promises and announcements — even leaking old videos to try and embarrass each other.

So why isn’t this considered an election campaign already?

Because the PM has yet to visit the Governor General to make the formal request to dissolve Parliament and start the election.

In 2015, Stephen Harper made that visit to the GG on Aug. 2 and we heard complaint after complaint about how the 79-day campaign was the longest in history.