Canada’s conservative prime minister launched snap general elections on Sunday to try to firm up his minority government, in what is expected be a heated ideological contest between the right and left.
The ruling Conservatives are in a favored position. The latest polls put the incumbent party led by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a comfortable lead ahead of its main rival, the Liberals, and even in sight of a majority.
But a slowing economy, rising Canadian combat casualties in Afghanistan — including a soldier’s death announced only hours after the election writ was dropped — and the Conservatives’ lackluster efforts to stem climate change could dash Harper’s bid for an absolute majority in the 308-seat parliament.
Harper told reporters the election would lay out for voters the stark contrast between the right and left’s economic and environmental policies.
“We have come to a moment that requires the people of Canada to choose a way forward,” Harper said after asking Governor General Michaelle Jean to dissolve parliament.
“Between now and Oct. 14th, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interest in a time of global economic trouble,” he said.
“They will choose between clear direction or uncertainty, between common sense or risky experiments, between steadiness or recklessness,” Harper said.
The leader of the Liberal Party, Stephane Dion, said the election was pivotal because “there has never been a federal election that has more clearly provided to Canadians such a stark choice between two visions for our country.”
Dion called Harper’s government, in office since January 2006, “the most conservative government in our history” and pledged to reduce poverty in Canada by one-third overall and by one-half among children, as well as introduce a carbon tax to curb greenhouse gases.
Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois, as well as New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, went a step further and compared Harper and the Conservatives to the administration of US President George W. Bush.
“Let us never forget, never, that Stephen Harper wanted to take Canada into the Iraq war in 2003,” said Duceppe, adding the main election choice is between his own leftist vision and “a society where the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.”
At a press conference, Layton urged voters to say “bye-bye to George W. Bush and to Stephen Harper.”
He suggested the governments of the past quarter-century run by either Conservatives or Liberals were more alike than not. He promised change.
As the campaign got underway, support for Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan was dealt a blow with the announced death on Sunday of another Canadian soldier — the fourth this week. It was the 97th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan since 2003.
There are some 2,500 Canadian soldiers currently in Afghanistan. Ottawa’s mission was extended in March to 2011 by the Conservatives with qualified support from the Liberals, but recent opinion polls suggest a slight majority of Canadians oppose Canada’s role.
The Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats have consistently opposed it.
Harper launched his campaign in the Francophone province of Quebec, where for the first time polls put the Conservatives neck-and-neck with the separatist Bloc Quebecois. Seats must be won in Quebec to gain a majority.
Harper said the Conservatives would run on a record that includes lowering taxes, changing rules to prevent funding of political campaigns by large corporations and unions, lengthening mandatory criminal sentences and allocating money for family child care.
The sagging economy is also expected to be a major campaign theme, despite a historically low unemployment rate of 6.1 percent, amid fears of a recession as Canada’s biggest trading partner, the US, struggles with its sub-prime mortgage crisis and unemployment.
Before dissolution the Conservatives held 127 seats, the Liberals 95, the Bloc Quebecois 48, and the New Democrats 30. Four seats were vacant while Independents held another four seats, including the seat of one member of Parliament who announced this week he would join the relatively new Green Party.
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