I'll go back to the first part of your question. This is very careful in its wording in that it does not in any way fetter the discretion or the prerogatives of the Governor General and the Crown; nor would we want it to, because those powers are very, very real.
You would probably remember, back in 1985, in the provincial election of that year, that the Conservative Party, which had been in office for over four decades, had a plurality of seats in the Ontario legislature. Mr. Miller, the premier at the time, had the absolute right to meet the Ontario legislature at that particular time, but there were those who figured that this raised an interesting constitutional dilemma. If Mr. Miller, having met the Ontario legislature in a minority situation, had been defeated, it would have been within the prerogative of the lieutenant-governor at the time to refuse him a dissolution of the Ontario legislature and to then canvass, at that time, Mr. Peterson and Mr. Rae to see whether they in fact could have formed a government.
So yes, there are conventions that take place, but those conventions are circumscribed by the powers that reside in the Crown, and I think that on occasion they're used.
That being said, I say woe betide the Prime Minister in a majority government--to use Mr. Proulx's example--after one year deciding that he wanted the Governor General to dissolve the Canadian Parliament. He probably would find that he wouldn't get the response that he may be looking for. With legislation on the books indicating that the election would be four years hence, he would be hard pressed to get the Governor General to use his or her prerogatives.