John Rapley - FOREIGN FOCUSON MONDAY, Canadians go to the polls in a federal election that is shaping up as the most hotly-contested vote in over a decade. The thing one has to know about federal politics in Canada is that the Liberal Party so dominates that it has come to be called the natural party of government. This results from an alignment of some of Canada's largest demographic groups in particular, Catholics, francophones and recent immigrants that dates back more than a century. Consequently, the Liberals always start with a strong lead over their rivals in any election.
The only other party to govern Canada has been in one incarnation or another the Conservatives. The key rule in federal politics, though, is that Conservatives do not win elections. Liberals lose them. And the Liberals risk losing this one big-time. As inevitably happens when a party holds power for a long time with little in the way of opposition, complacency and arrogance set in. This complacency recently manifested itself in Canada in the so-called sponsorship scandal, a corrupt bit of work in which the federal government essentially set up front shops to steer money to its friends.
Canada's political landscape changed in an important way over the last half year. If the Liberals hold the centre in a country that itself generally holds the centre, there are still important right- and left-wing constituencies. However, they are divided. The left is split along linguistic lines, with the NDP (New Democratic Party) rallying progressive voters in English Canada but the Quebec-nationalist Bloc Quebecois doing it in Canada's majority-French province.
As for the right, it has been split for over a decade. But late last year, its two principal factions put aside their differences and merged to form the Conservative Party (distinct from the old Progressive Conservatives, a name that only a Canadian can understand). The new Conservative Party has capitalised effectively on discontent with the Liberals in English Canada. Its problem is that it has made insignificant inroads into Quebec. There, discontent with the Liberals is fuelling the Bloc Quebecois.
Ideologically, the Bloc and Conservatives are poles apart. So too are the NDP and the Conservatives. It is hard to envision an alliance between the Conservatives and either party, although the Bloc and the Conservatives might find a little common ground on an agenda of rolling back federal powers.
Nevertheless, a Conservative victory will likely lead Canada into a period of instability: unable to pick up a single seat in Quebec, the party could almost certainly not win a majority government, and any alliance it formed as a minority would likely prove fractious.
HUNCH
I have a hunch that, with this in mind, Liberal voters will begin returning to the fold over these last few days of the campaign. Aided by Anglophone fear of the Conservative agenda, which to many Canadians looks just a bit too American, a Liberal rebound might also benefit from the fact that the Bloc Quebecois is perhaps a little too popular in Quebec. Many Quebec voters who support the Bloc like it for sticking up for the provinces interests. However, they do not necessarily share the Bloc's desire to withdraw Quebec from the federation.
In recent days, though, some Quebec nationalists have begun saying openly that the Bloc's strong showing will put the province back on the road towards a vote on sovereignty. This may frighten some federalists. A modest turnaround may be all the Liberals require. A majority government now looks pretty much out of the question. But if the Liberals win a plurality of seats in the House of Commons, an alliance with the NDP who anyhow one Liberal prime minister once characterised as Liberals in a hurry becomes possible.
For Liberal leader Paul Martin, such an eventuality would, at this stage, look like snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Using past experience as a guide, the Liberals would then govern cautiously, clean up their stables, and call another election as soon as their poll numbers recovered.
Nonetheless, this race is too close to call. And if the Liberals fail to claw back enough of their angry supporters over the weekend, Canadian politics will start to offer some interesting viewing.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
