Tomorrow Canadians will be going to the polls to vote in their 42nd federal election. At more than two months in length it is the longest in Canadian history.
Whilst the long campaign was supposed to be to the benefit of the better organised and funded Conservatives, it now appears that the Liberals under Justin Trudeau have been the real beneficiaries as they have over the past month been steadily gaining in the polls and enter tomorrow ahead by roughly 5%. An impressive performance considering the party was so badly trashed at the last election and going into this campaign were consistently polling in third place behind the NDP and Conservatives.
However going by the polls this is how things stand going into polling day tomorrow (worth pointing out 3 million people have already voted in Canada due to advance voting).
How would this work out in terms of seats? (In 2004, polls projecting seats got it badly wrong).
In Canada the party that typically has the most seats forms a government. There has been speculation about a Liberal/NDP coalition but the most likely outcome is that the largest party will form a minority government.
Harper has made his career from defying pundits, he has taken the Conservative movement in Canada from the fringes and make it the party of government. Ironically it was his hatred of Pierre Trudeau that drove him towards his political thinking and it looks (if polls are accurate) that his son could be the person who defeats him.
Interesting that on the cusp of the 20th anniversary of the 1995 Quebec Referendum that the Bloc Qubecois will still suffer a huge loss as it looks set to gain back very little ground that it lost to the NDP in the Orange Wave of 2011.
To learn more about Harper you should watch this view with one of his biographers John Ibbitson.
Polls will close at 8pm in the Atlantic provinces, then Quebec and Ontario will follow, then the West will come in with British Columbia the last to close its polls. A winner should be known by about 11pm EST.
David McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs
