So, the last time that Canadian politics really commanded the national mood was for a couple of frenetic weeks in December of 2008, when, in a political crisis unprecedented since 1925 (and that was a completely different scenario, really), a rickety coalition of centre-left/far-left/socialist parties (Liberals/New Democrats/Bloc Quebecois) tried to mount a putsch against the minority Conservative government.
This didn't work, for a variety of reasons: Liberal insecurity about the coalition partners, national insecurity about the prospective leaders of the coalition government (which includes separatists in a supporting role), and the increasing extent to which our parliamentary system is understood to work more like a presidential one. So Stephen Harper lived to fight another day.
However, prospects for Stephen's many anti-fans have been getting much rosier lately, and, having just been reelected in the fall of 2008, it's looking rather like Steve will be facing the voters again less than a year later.
The last 5 years have been turbulent and unstable in Canadian politics, though it really reflects developments that started in the early 1990s.
Traditionally in Canada, the Francophone province of Quebec, with its considerable number of seats (now fixed at 75), was the key to stable governments: the party that controlled the largest and strongest bloc governed the most, and the rival party could only secure a majority if they made decent headway in the province. From 1867 to 1896, the Conservative Party was the party of Quebec; from 1896 to 1984, the Liberals were. In 1984, the (now prefixed "Progressive") Conservative Party made a new breakthrough by appealing to Quebec's nationalist voters, but, when the Progressive Conservative trend went bust (as inevitably happens), instead of going back to the Liberals, most of the seats were won by the Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party known for being the whiniest little bitches you could ever imagine.
This presented a problem; Quebec has about 25% of the House of Commons, and the Bloc usually wins around 50 of those 75 (so 15% of the House; their actual percentage of the Quebec vote is around 40%, but they get great distribution), meaning that it's really hard to get a majority. The Liberals solved this problem by taking advantage of vote-splitting on the right to essentially sweep Canada's largest province, Ontario, which has over 100 seats; however, once the two conservative parties unified, as they did in 2003, and Liberal credibility got hit by the Sponsorship Scandal (Canadian politics is traditionally driven by a sort of Liberal boom and bust: the Liberals win power, govern for two/three/four terms, get complacent and corrupt, the voters toss them for the Tories, who get one/two terms, then the voters get really sick of them and vote the Liberals back in), this was no longer an option.
Since the 2004 election, we've had three votes at more or less two-year intervals (2004, 2006, 2008, like American congressional votes), each of which produced a minority government (Liberal in 2004, then Tory in 2006 and 2008). Both the Tories and the Liberals are desperate to hit 40% of the national popular vote, which would probably mean another majority, though, again, Quebec's state makes that difficult).
The current minority under Stephen Harper has been fairly constrained in what sort of legislation it can enact, both because of the situation in the House and the electorate at large; Harper and the Reform Party that he helped found burst onto the scene advocating a bunch of what Americans would recognize as fairly traditional Republican policies, such as supporting the death penalty (inactive in Canada since 1963, abolished in the early 70s) and dismantling the welfare state, but in order to get any electoral traction they had to jettison most of that. It's when you look at what they do within the confines of the executive that you see their true colours (such as discontinuing the longstanding policy of intervening in the cases of Canadian citizens subject to capital punishment abroad (see: the USA)).
Harper has never been popular; he's an angry nerd with shark eyes and no real charisma, famously humourless. But he's won on the basis of being thought of as competent and by using his massive fundraising advantage to take apart weaker opponents (particularly Stephane Dion, the Liberal leader he fought the 2008 election against). The demolition job on Dion was incredibly successful, and the fact that most Canadians couldn't picture him as Prime Minister was probably the main reason the coalition idea last winter didn't take.
So what's changed? Two things: a new Liberal leader; and the same thing that worked so great for the Democrats in the USA: a good old-fashioned economic downturn.
The new Liberal leader is this guy (if you were a regular BBC viewer in the 1980s and 1990s, you undoubtedly know who he is): Michael Grant Ignatieff. (or, if you want a less humourous take, here.
The finest Grant stock of the WASP Upper Canadian strain meets the aristocratic blood of Romanov apparatchiks to make a guy who really looks like he could be Prime Minister. Recent polls have put his personal approvals at around 50%, about 20% higher than those of Harper, with the Liberals 6 points ahead (36-30); other polls have shown it closer, but there's a general sense now that the Liberals are ahead, and have the momentum on their side.
Probably the most notable feature of that poll in particular is its demonstration that the Liberals have resumed their traditional role as the primary federalist party in Quebec against the Bloc; Harper's Tories had previously been aiming to supplant them there, but the federalist vote is coming home.
Without putting too much into Barack Obama as a factor, I suspect his example has also affected Harper negatively in one way: Obama's a consumate statesman, and Harper is small, small man. He doesn't have a nonpartisan bone in his body, no sense of class. Andrew Coyne, one of the nation's more perceptive commentators (of the small-c conservative variety) accurately noted that Ignatieff's more genial demeanour looks particularly appealing compared to Harper's meanness.
The other problem, the economic crisis, isn't Harper's fault, really; some guys on Wall Street messed up (though, had Harper previously gotten to implement the sorts of reforms he really wanted, things would be far worse here than he'll ever admit; he'd have dismantled the Canadian banking system whose protections proved so wise when the recession hit, and the welfare safety net that's now sheltering out-of-work Canadians would have been massively eroded). But, when you're in power, you take the hits for those kinds of things, so in this case General Recession has assumed command of the progressive army on its march ahead.
The wrinkle in all this the declining fortunes of the New Democrats, Canada's left-wing party; they tend to gorge themselves whenever the Liberals are at a low ebb, but whenever the Liberals get back into favour with the public the New Democratic tide recedes. The EKOS poll cited above suggests the NDP would still be a position to play its normal role in Liberal minorities, that of the guys who trade policy implementation for their votes, but there have been plenty of rumours that the NDP leader, Jack Layton, desperate to stave off losses, is angling to cut a deal with Harper to put off a vote when the Liberals likely come out with their knives in the fall. Such a move would be devastating to the NDP's fortunes among the activist base, and, after months of Layton lambasting the Liberals for allowing the Tories to survive, would be massively hypocritical. I've never been a huge fan of Layton, but I can't see those rumours coming to much; the Tories couldn't survive for long on his support alone, and the electoral piper would be far more damaging.
All signs point to an election this fall. It's possible somebody could hit majority paydirt, but the more likely result would be a Liberal minority, with, optimally, the NDP retaining enough seats to provide a relatively stable ally in passing budgets.
Far better news, in any event, than a progressive looking at last year's election results could have hoped for.