Can Canada’s Conservatives continue their winning streak?

By M.D.

Elections in Canada used to be a bit of a sprint, the last five averaging just under six weeks from start to finish. Candidates now face an 11-week marathon after Stephen Harper, Canada’s Conservative prime minister, visited the governor general August 2^nd to officially launch the campaign for the October 19^th vote.

It is not auspicious timing for the ruling Conservatives, who lag the left-leaning New Democratic Party in the polls and whose claim of being the best economic stewards is looking tattered with the economy contracting for the first five months of the year. But the government was largely bound to the October date by its own fixed-date election law. The only thing the prime minister had to play with was the length of the campaign.