So, us up here in the Great White North are having a Federal Election in a couple of days, and in spite of it being
"the longest Canadian election campaign EVARRRR!", we haven't had much talk of it on The Bore other than that one thread Arvie made for that one debate.
So, in an effort to rectify that, mere days from the election, here's a thread to talk about it.
Who is running? Conservative Party of Canada - Stephen Harper 
The Conservative party is Canada's...err....conservative party. Fairly right-wing. Led by Stephen Harper, the Conservatives have been in power since 2006, being in a minority government from 2006-2011, and a Majority government since 2011. If y'all yanks don't know what that means, I ain't giving you a Westminister primer here.
Major features:
-obsessed with balancing the budget. Had to go into deficit when the '08 recession hit, but finally got the budget back into surplus this year (Convenient!)
- has made a big deal about supporting the military, in spite of cutting its budget and completely fucking up military procurement for the past 5 years.
- has made a big deal about being "tough on crime"/pro-law enforcement in spite of having completely gutted funding to the RCMP.
- signed some significant trade deals.
- does not give a shit about climate change.
- obsessed with lowering taxes, but this has mainly taken the form of "boutique", targeted tax credit for specific groups/situations.
- Has decided to start a fearmongering campaign by saying that Muslim immigrants at citizenship ceremonies can't wear the Niqab when taking the citizenship oath. Except that only 2 women in the country have wanted to in the past year. And every level of court so far has said "no, of course women have the freedom, if they choose, to wear whatever the fuck they want during a citizenship ceremony."
Liberal Party of Canada - Justin Trudeau
The Liberal Party is Canada's....errr.....liberal party. Traditional centrist/slightly centre-left. The Liberal Party has been the governing party for the majority of Canadian history, and has been referred to, unironically by Liberal Party members, as "Canada's natural governing Party." Soo, no hubris there.
However, the Liberals have done a poor job of picking recent leaders. They had Stephane Dion in 2008, who is a really nice, really smart guy, but can't speak English to save his life, and got spanked. Then they chose Michael Ignatieff, a man who had spent nearly his entire adult life living outside of Canada as an academic, and only came back to run for office and try to become Prime Minister. The result? In 2011, he got spanked so bad that it was the worst election result in Liberal Party history, and he had reduced the liberal party to 34 Members of Parliament out of 308 total.
So, enter Justin Trudeau. He won the Liberal Party leadership on the basis of two things: Being the son of the most famous Prime Minister in Canadian History, and winning a charity boxing match against a Conservative Senator. Yuuuppp.
Major features:
-in spite of them traditionally being a "centrist" party, Trudeau has pulled them quite a bit to the left/progressive. He is for marijuana legalization, and in the "budget surplus"-obsessed Canada, he has pledged to run "modest" deficits for three years to put money into infrastructure and social programs.
-Has not totally fucked his campaign up like people expected him to.
-has recruited some pretty good candidates to run on his slate.
-Has nice hair.
The New Democratic Party of Canada - Thomas Mulcair 
The New Democratic Party is Canada's Left Wing Socialist Party. Except, just as Trudeau has pulled the centrist Liberal Party to the left, Mulcair has pulled the leftist NDP to the centre.
Major Features:
- The NDP had their best performance in 2011, winning the 2nd most seats in Parliament, under Jack Layton. But Jack Layton had cancer and died.
- Layton was replaced by Thomas Mulcair, who is a very sharp guy, but seems to be at his best when "angry", in a prosecutor's role attacking the government. In this campaign, in response, Mulcair has tried to smile more. Which is really fucking creepy, and he should stop.
- The NDP started the campaign as the frontrunner. At some point halfway through, however, they took a nosedive. Some believe it was because of the Conservatives bringing up the Niqab issue. Quebec really doesn't like the niqab, and Quebec is where NDP support was strongest. However, the NDP, as a Not Racist Party, still took the principled stance against the niqab, and seemed to take a hit because of it. Beyond that explanation, the NDP just seemed to be in cruise control for much of the campaign.
Green Party of Canada - Elizabeth May
Bloq Quebecois Party of "Vive Le Quebec Libre!" - Gilles DuceppeNeither of these people will form the government, so I won't talk about them. The greens will probably win like 2-5 seats, and the Bloc maybe 10.
Who's winningThe latest opinion polls have the Liberals leading at between 35-37% of the popular vote, the Conservatives next at around 31-33%, and the NDP in the low 20s.
How that will shake out in terms of actual seat counts, who knows?
Next post: What's happened during the campaign......
