Slouching away from an election: Canada in November 2009.

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Slouching away from an election: Canada in November 2009.

Editor's Note: A long time contributor to this journal and the author of a book on the U.S.-Canadian relationship examines the political landscape of our largest trading partner. He answers the question: Should it really matter to the United States which political party leads Canada? -Ed.

After a frequently cold and rainy summer (Canadians believe they should have pleasant summers as compensation for their gruesome winters), the country appears to have avoided an autumn election. Although as close to a sure thing as you can get in politics, miscalculation could still result in an election nobody now appears to want--and all three opposition parties must combine to defeat the government. For his part, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff stated that he would not support the government in future votes (declaring that the "time is up" for PM Stephen Harper). Other opposition parties have traditionally opposed all government proposals, but the socialist New Democrats have indicated they will support the government while it implements revised unemployment benefits.

An autumn election would be the fourth in six years (and a recent poll says that over 70 percent of Canadians oppose it), but there is an air of frustration over the systemic limitations of a minority government coupled with its highly politicized day-to-day parliamentary confrontations.

Public opinion polls have been indecisive; they have gyrated from mid/late October entrails readings showing the Tories in range of a parliamentary majority to early November estimates that the parties again stand where they did in October 2008. With such inconclusive figures, Ignatieff appears to have concluded that he has one chance to be lucky and now is not that time.

To Review the Bidding

The Canadian election in October 2008 reaffirmed the Tory/Conservative government in power. At that juncture, the Tories and Prime Minister Harper, still a minority albeit a strengthened minority at 143 of 308 seats, appeared near term dominant/defining for Canada. Nevertheless, as Parliament ground through the first ten months of 2009, such blithe predictions had gone askew. What appeared clear is now a murky muddle. The year since the election has seen:

* misguided political overreach by the Conservatives prompting an Opposition riposte that challenged the style of parliamentary governance if not its technical legality;

* early defenestration of the hapless Liberal leader and his replacement by an innovative enigma who has begun his own set of stumbles;

* a global recession which in October 20...

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