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Voters went into the previous two campaigns, in 2006 and 2008, with relatively clear preferences, analysts said. This time around, a larger-than-usual bloc of undecided voters could swing the polls either way. "The campaign could have a significant bearing on the outcome," said Peter Harder, a former senior civil servant and now senior policy adviser for law firm Fraser Milner Casgrain. Mr. Harper, 51 years old, has already staked out Canada's robust economic recovery from the global recession as his biggest campaign issue. His party has rolled out in recent weeks a series of ads touting his government's economic stewardship.
In a budget his government unveiled earlier this week, he signaled an official end to most of the stimulus spending that he spearheaded to get Canada through the crisis. The budget also forecast better-than-expect progress on the government's deficit-reduction measures, at a time when most of Canada's industrialized peers struggle with ballooning debt.
Mr. Harper also peppered the budget with a series of targeted spending measures that analysts said could appeal to a wide variety of voters in a campaign. That budget failed to win support from any of the three opposition parties this week, all but ending any chance of his government surviving. The budget document now serves as an economic manifesto for the Conservatives. "We've laid out a good fiscal track for Canada that is maintainable," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters this week. Mr. Harper said in a brief statement after the vote Friday that the economic recovery remained Canadians' top priority.
The opposition, meanwhile, is expected to emphasize a series of alleged ethical lapses the government has been tarred with, including the finding of contempt of Parliament. The finding alleges the government withheld from lawmakers key cost data related to anticrime legislation. The government has said the committee's work is politically motivated.
Friday's no-confidence measure allowed the opposition to avoid officially voting against the budget, and may help it frame the campaign's debate around the behavior of Mr. Harper's government, instead of economic matters.
The no-confidence vote, 156 to 145 along party lines, packed the galleries of the House of Commons. It is the first defeat of a Canadian government since 2005 and only the sixth in the nation's history. It is also the first time in Canadian history that a government has been voted in contempt of Parliament.
It was also largely expected, after opposition leaders came out Tuesday to voice opposition to the budget. Opposition leaders, who together have a majority in the House of Commons, had been maneuvering for weeks to bring the parliamentary contempt finding to a vote.
Mr. Harper now must meet with Canada's governor general, the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, Canada's head of state, in order to ask Parliament to be dissolved. Political parties will be battling for the 308 seats in the Commons. Conservatives currently hold 143 seats, Liberals 77, the Bloc Quebecois 47, and the New Democratic Party 36. There are two independent lawmakers, and three seats are vacant. Canada has had minority governments since 2004, with the Conservatives at the helm since 2006, after they ended 12 years of Liberal rule at elections that year. A party has to win at least 155 seats to form a majority government.[/p]
