When Canada's Prime Minister, Mr Jean Chretien, called a general election 18 months ahead of time, it seemed like a sound idea. His Liberal Party had a commanding lead in the opinion polls and he could boast of much solid achievement in government, especially on deficit cutting. Yet those same polls also pointed out that a huge number of voters, 50 per cent of Liberals and 60 per cent of Conservatives, were prepared to change their minds during the campaign. And this is exactly what happened.
The latest polls suggest that today's election will see the Liberal majority cut sharply and perhaps even oblige Mr Chretien to form a minority government. What the Liberals still have going for them, however, is the certainty that no other party will come close to it in vote share or seats won. The reason is that the Liberals are now the only party which has significant strength in much of the country; it is still, for the moment, a strong federal party. Today's voting should indicate if it will long remain so.
The voting will also indicate if the Progressive Conservative Party, in government for 10 years up to 1992, has any chance of ever getting back to power. The signs are not propitious. At best it may garner in 20 per cent of the votes but its support is spread thinly through the country and, under the first past the post system, its seat tally will be well below 20 per cent.
The Conservatives are victims of the geographical fractures in Canadian politics, fractures which are widening all the time. The Bloc Quebecois, which is dedicated to making Quebec independent of Canada, may win over 60 seats, all of them in Quebec. The rightwing Reform Party should win a similar number, almost all of them out west. In the parliament disbanded last month, the official opposition was provided by the Bloc Quebecois, a party whose members do not consider themselves Canadian. In the next parliament it will be the same again unless the Reform Party can squeeze ahead.
The Reform Party, ironically, has considerably boosted support for the Bloc Quebecois, a party with which it is in total conflict. Many Quebeckers had gone cold on independence demands, worrying that constant uncertainty had contributed to economic woes, including unemployment which, at 12 per cent, is much higher than the national average. Quebec support for the Liberals and the Conservatives started to rise. Then the Reform Party decided to sling some gratuitous insults at Quebeckers suggesting that they had no right to lead a Canadian government.
Quite who the insult was aimed at is uncertain. Mr Chretien is a francophone Quebecker, as is the leader of the Conservatives, Mr Jean Charest. The result, however, was to enforce Quebecker feelings of vulnerability and drive more of them to support the separatists. The Bloc Quebecois, as a result, may not win many extra seats today but if the Reform Party does well the separatists case will be greatly strengthened. The last Quebec referendum on independence, two years ago, failed to get a yes vote by less than half of one percent and the separatists are determined to try again soon. Todays polling will tell us more than just the composition of Canada's next government.