The Economist makes book on the Federal election

The good folks at The Economist take a quick look at the Canadian political scene at the start of the election campaign:

The Liberals have been losing support among voters ever since the revelation, in 2003, of the so-called "sponsorship" scandal. In 1995, voters in Quebec narrowly rejected a referendum on secession from Canada. In the following years, the Liberal government, under then prime minister Jean Chrétien, spent money on advertisements in the majority-francophone province promoting Canadian unity. Some of the money found its way to advertising firms with links to the Liberals, and thence back into party coffers. Mr Chrétien’s successor as prime minister, Paul Martin, asked a judge, John Gomery, to look into the accusations. His commission reported this month that money had indeed gone criminally missing, but explicitly exonerated Mr Martin. Nonetheless, the Liberals now seem tired and faintly corrupt in voters’ eyes.

But will this usher in a government led by the main opposition party, the Conservatives? The odds are surprisingly long. The current Conservative Party is the result of a recent merger between the western-based Canadian Alliance, which resembles America’s Republicans in its social and fiscal conservatism, and the ideologically softer Progressive Conservative Party. Led by the Alliance’s Stephen Harper, the new Conservatives seem more right-wing than many Canadians are comfortable with. Mr Harper’s opposition to gay marriage and reservations about abortion — both of which are espoused by the Liberal government — make him easy to portray as out-of-touch with tolerant Canadian values.

[. . .]

But Canada differs from its southern neighbour in a big respect. The two big parties must compete with the NDP across the country. And, more significantly for Canada's future, these three parties must contend with the Bloc Québécois, the national party advocating "sovereignty" — independence — for Quebec. Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc's leader, promises that voters in his province will pass "harsh judgment" on the Liberals for a scandal which, after all, misused funds designed to promote Canadian unity in Quebec. And not only is the federal government unpopular, but the provincial one, run by the Liberals, has failed to impress. This combination of forces will probably strengthen the Bloc’s hold on Quebec’s delegation in Ottawa in the January election.

Opinion polls suggest that support for independence has been growing in Quebec since the 1995 referendum. But much of this support looks fragile — many people say paradoxically that they favour independence but do not want to see a referendum soon: in other words, they are for it in theory, but against in practice.