National Post

Canadian politics: This is your (TV-movie) life
In light of the announcement that Rick Roberts and Sook Yin-Lee will play Jack Layton and Olivia Chow in CBC’s Smilin’ Jack: The Jack Layton Story, the Post‘s Steve Murray looks at which other stars should stand in for Canada’s political heavyweights in the inevitable dramatizations of their lives.

Sleepover on the Hill: Your guide to Elizabeth May’s omnibus bill slumber party
With all the Bill C-38 amendments, the House’s voting sessions will be going late — like ‘slumber party’ late. So why not make it an actual slumber party?

Elizabeth May becomes Canada’s first elected Green MP
Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been elected as Canada’s first Green MP. Just after 9 pm, Conservative incumbent Gary Lunn called Ms. May to congratulate her on her victory. It’s a landmark moment for the 27-year-old party, who since 1984 has run 9 unsuccessful federal elections.

“I will never shrink from bringing truth to power nor will I embrace the politics of spin,” she told supporters in her acceptance speech.

“What we do now is what will prove the virtues and the benefits of what we’ve done,” said Ms. May. “So far our work in just beginning.” (Photo: Lyle Staddord/Times Colonist)

Election 2011 will be one for the books
One seasoned pollster deemed it the “Seinfeld election” — the election about nothing. But the election about nothing soon became a historic competition with an unprecedented narrative, driven by a cast of characters who were themselves scrambling to understand the suddenly wily electoral landscape.

Live Now: Election 2011 pre-game show
Join the National Post team for our live coverage as results come in for the 2011 Federal Election. Until 10:00 p.m. ET we’ll preview the key ridings and candidates you’ll want to watch. Polls close across the country at 10:00 p.m. ET and we’ll have all the breaking results and instant analysis.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper, NDP Leader Jack Layton, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May cast their ballots for the Canadian Federal Election (Postmedia News/Pool)

Live Now: Election 2011 pre-game show
Join the National Post team for our live coverage as results come in for the 2011 Federal Election. Until 10:00 p.m. ET we’ll preview the key ridings and candidates you’ll want to watch. Polls close across the country at 10:00 p.m. ET and we’ll have all the breaking results and instant analysis.

Join us tonight for our LIVE #elxn41 night coverage, Battlefield Canada

Mao Tse-Tung once said, “Politics is war without bloodshed.” And while we can assume that there will be no harm done as Canadians head to the polls Monday, there will certainly be no love lost as the country’s five main political parties grapple for control of Canada in what may be the most wide-open election in recent memory.

Indeed, there will be no shortage of action Monday night once the results start pouring in, and the National Post has you covered with our special election night online feature, Battlefield Canada. Click here for details

Our complete Election 2011 coverage

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Full Comment on Election 2011

Follow the leaders: Day 32 
How do you stem a surging NDP with less than a week before Canadians head to the polls? If you’re Conservative Stephen Harper, you take on Jack Layton head-on. Both party leaders are travelling to Quebec today to shore up support in a province that is shaping up to be this election’s kingmaker.

Q&A: VintageVoter digs out old photos of party leaders
Once upon a time, Stephen Harper was a mop-haired, plaid-clothed university student, and Jack Layton’s mustache was still black. Fast-forward some 30-odd years to meet David Leibl, a 31-year-old communications strategist from Winnipeg, who found these old photographs scattered across the Internet, sought the help of two tech-savvy friends, and compiled the images to make VintageVoter.ca. The Post’s Michael Fraiman spoke with Mr. Leibl on Tuesday, roughly 24 hours and 130,000 views after his site’s launch.

Q: How did you get the idea?
A: You know what — the motivation came from frustration with the level of voter participation in Canada. Why funny vintage pictures of Canadian leaders? It stems from just tripping across an old photo — actually, the first photo on the site, of Michael Ignatieff in interview in the late 1980s, and we thought the photo was just hilarious. And the Internet is such a wonderful treasure trove of photographs like those ones. We launched the site [Monday] morning, and it’s been our good fortune to have had a few more photos roll in.

Follow the leaders: Day 25 on the trail
Now in their fourth week of riding four wheelers, playing with power tools, eating sandwiches…oh, and meeting constituents and making policy announcements, the federal party leaders are still keeping busy on the trail. On Tuesday, the three major parties are hoping to ratchet up support mostly in Ontario, but will also make appearances in next-door provinces Manitoba and Quebec.

Tories hit home stretch with 12-point lead over Liberals: poll
The Conservatives are hitting the home stretch with a 12-point lead over the Liberals, while the NDP enjoys a swell of national support, a new Ekos-iPolitics poll shows. Pollster Frank Graves said the NDP is the only party that has improved its prospects during the campaign. The survey of 2,400 Canadians finds 37.4% would vote Conservative, 24.9% Liberal, and 20% NDP if an election were held today. Another 8.4% plan to vote for the Green Party and 7.8 % for the Bloc Quebecois.

Chris Selley: Jack Layton + nationalist agenda = NDP surge
This year’s Angus Reid poll, released Monday, was conducted within days of the leaders’ debates, where Mr. Layton landed some pretty good shots on his competition. Stephen Harper was mostly running defence, Mr. Ignatieff ran hot and cold, and Mr. Layton had the advantage of being neither leader’s primary target. It’s also true that the New Democrats are increasingly relevant in Quebec. Both the Angus Reid poll and a Nanos Research poll released Monday have the NDP at roughly double their popular vote haul in 2008, which was 12%. If the nationwide NDP surge is real, it’s safe to assume that’s a huge part of what’s driving it.

Report on G8 spending won’t be released, Auditor General says
The Conservatives defended themselves against allegations an Auditor General investigation had found the government misinformed Parliament on nearly $50-million in funding for projects related to last year’s G8 summit in a Tory Cabinet minister’s Ontario riding.

37 Days: Knockout punches no longer part of debates
Short of Michael Ignatieff acknowledging that he really is Just Visiting, or Stephen Harper producing a black book titled ‘Hidden Agenda’ from his blazer pocket, it will be impossible to state that a decisive blow was struck

Killing vote subsidy could alter electoral landscape: analysts
Behind the principled rhetoric surrounding the debate over $2-a-vote public subsidies for political parties are the parties’ competing self-interests, each with implications for the Canadian electoral landscape

Ignatieff’s time outside of Canada is still a problem for voters
Chris Selley: Every time there’s a citizenship-related debate in this country, Canadians reliably prove that the Liberals’ expansive, hooray-for-everyone vision of Canadian-ness is far from a consensus

Follow the leaders: Day 17 on the campaign trail
The leaders will grind their cross-country tours to a near halt on Monday, gearing up instead for Tuesday evening’s much-anticipated English debate.

Save for Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who is releasing her camp’s platform in Vancouver today, and who has been excluded from the debates, the major leaders have a relatively light schedule for Day 17 of the election campaign — at least in terms of public events.

Follow the Leaders: Day 13 on the trail
It’s the 13th day on the trail and the federal leaders haven’t lost any steam just yet (And look! More campaign stop overlaps from Ignatieff and Harper). Here’s where you’ll find them.

GeoPollster Canada
Part real-world election game, part mobile polling experiment. Sign in with your Foursquare account below, choose the political party you support and start checking in to help it seize control of venues, cities, provinces and perhaps even the country as a whole.

Follow the leaders: Day 12 on the campaign trail
After a day in part spent defending his tightly run campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is back in Ontario courting the immigrant vote in battleground ridings he hopes to retain or usurp.

Foursquare + politics = GeoPollster Canada
Part real-world election game, part mobile polling experiment. Sign in with your Foursquare account below, choose the political party you support and start checking in to help it seize control of venues, cities, provinces and perhaps even the country as a whole.

Court dashes Green Party’s debate hopes
A federal appeal court judge has dismissed the Green party’s attempts to quickly hear legal arguments over the party’s participation in the televised leaders debate, meaning Green leader Elizabeth May is unlikely to be able to participate next week.

Green Party snubs fringe debate
Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been invited to a party leaders’ debate but likely won’t attend — a coalition of small or fringe political parties are hosting their own public forum this month. “We are not one of the small, fringe parties. They got about 1% of the vote all combined. We do not group ourselves in with them,” said Kieran Green, a Green Party spokesman.

Graphic: The Leader Locator for the first week of the campaign
Where have the party leaders been this week? (HINT: They sure like Toronto!)

Election 2011 Scorecard: Week 1 of campaign goes to Harper
Hobbled Layton squeezed out