The B.C. legislature would sit for 71 days this year, if an election were not already set in law for May 12.

Provincial politicians are scheduled to meet in Victoria for 47 days in the spring starting on February 10, and 24 days in the fall, according to the recently released parliamentary calendar.

But once the writ is dropped for the May election, which has to happen 28 days ahead of voting day, the house will stop meeting and won't gather again until after the new government is sworn in in June.

That cuts 25 days from the legislative calendar, bringing the total number of meeting days down to 46. That's 10 fewer days than the legislature sat in 2008, a year when the Liberal government canceled the fall sitting before reversing itself and recalling the house for five days to address the global economic slowdown.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.