It's late, but it's still there. Here's the latest pundit review.
Feel free to use this as a open thread on Canadian politics, like the previous ones have been.
Ian Robinson: Young people care about people other than themselves, still have dreams for the future (and aren't completely destroyed by the 'nihilistic hell that is my life' obsession with paycheques and money), and thus don't vote like me. I'm so glad that overall, they don't vote. If they start voting, I say to hell with democracy.
The Province points out that the NDP has a real opportunity to take the middle ground and win big this election.
Kevin Brooker brings up the Security and Prosperity Partnership and points out that when a government makes a deal secretly, it is almost never for the public's good.
Preston Manning, the former leader of the Reform Party (now known as the Conservative party) wastes newsprint letting everyone know that he is as much of a partisan as ever and that he thinks his successor to the mantle of the Conservatives is the best choice for Prime Minister. In other news, water is wet, Canada can be cold during the winter, and the pope is apparently Catholic.
Lawrence Martin bemoans the fact that the Canadian media gives the Conservatives a free pass on their sleazy, mud-slinging, zero ethics, win-at-all-costs politics.
The Tories took attack ads to a record frequency, running them year round. While promising an era of cleanliness, they were accused of surreptitiously engaging in money transfers - the "in-and-out" affair - that led to an RCMP raid on their headquarters. They produced a secret 200-page manual on how to disrupt the parliamentary process, then went about doing so, shutting down committees or blocking potentially damaging witnesses.
They mocked their own accountability legislation by turning access-to-information regulations on the Afghan detainees file and many others into barricades-to-information. Information Commissioner Robert Marleau reported that Mr. Harper's own Privy Council Office was a leader in access-denial. He graded it an "F."
The Prime Minister's Office attempted to vet the communications of Auditor-General Sheila Fraser and no less than seven other independent officers of Parliament. The government silenced bureaucrats and foreign diplomats to degrees unseen. Its own cabinet members were often gagged in the Commons, queries to them being turned over to the party House leader, who was a specialist in ridicule. In Ottawa, normal journalistic avenues were cut off until recently. A huge government information registry was terminated.
The smearing of opponents was taken to new heights. The opposition was branded by the Prime Minister as anti-Israel and pro-Taliban and out to "screw" Canadians. MP Navdeep Bains was the victim of gross innuendo. Troubling ethical questions were raised by Dona Cadman on the alleged bribery of her husband; by the sole-sourcing of defence contracts, by NAFTAgate, by the Bernier affair. A long list of government pledges were openly defied, including on patronage and, most recently, on fixed-election dates.
The StarPhoenix wonders where all of the Conservatives are hiding.
Harry Sterling points out that Harper Conservatives are not your father's Conservatives. [Ed: In fact, I'd find it hard to argue that they are anything other than Harris Conservatives on a federal level. Anyone remember the successes of the Common Sense Revolution?]
What distinguished Diefenbaker and Stanfield from Harper was their respect for Parliament and its role in promoting national unity regardless of the differing political views and policies of parties in the House of Commons and Senate.
Unlike Harper, who when heading the National Citizens Coalition several years ago famously said firewalls should be erected around Alberta to protect it from "... an aggressive and hostile federal government," Stanfield and Diefenbaker were staunch supporters of a strong federal system for Canada. They would look askance at Harper's constant efforts to dismantle federalism through stealth.
Janet Bagnall: Important fact: while only 4 people died in China from the contaminated milk product epidemic, 20 have died in Canada from the listeriosis outbreak.
Ian Gillespie visits a Psychic who predicts Dion will be the next prime minister of Canada along with many other interesting predictions.
The Toronto Star discusses the tactics Harper uses to actively mislead voters.
Greg Weston looks for leadership from Harper on the economy and all he hears is "The fundamentals of our economy are strong."
Stephen Harper kicked off the evening of enlightenment by defining the real problem as he sees it from his privileged perch as prime minister.
"What Canadians are worried right about now is not the job situation, not losing their homes like in the U.S," Harper said during the English-language confab.
"What they're worried about is they see the stock-market problems."
Those niggling problems, of course, include so many crashes in the stock markets in one month that pretty well every day of the week has now been called "black" at least twice.
Harper's reassurance that Canadians are only worried about losing their shirt, not their home, is particularly comforting to those of us investors now suddenly looking at the Freedom 105 retirement plan.
The Windsor Star: The NDP populist economic platform of increasing corporate tax rates may not be the easiest thing to sell during a recession.