Can someone explain the election/Canadian politics to an American lurker?

I have been following CBC and CTV news closely lately(I live about 20 minutes from the Blaine, WA border/White Rock, BC) and have a few questions about this election (which I find incredibly riveting).

About the Conservative opponent, Harper, What got me was the amount of tax breaks he was talking about, and working on fixing the Canadian govt. At one point I said to myself, this guy sounds like a Liberal (with all the tax cut talk). Well, the more I read on this guy, the more I worry about Canada. Honestly I wonder if he would be one of Bush's puppets and the next thing you know is Canada is joining America and the UK in Iraq fighting this senseless war (among other atrocities).

Anyhow...please explain to me about each party, and who you think has a chance winning this. What about the NDP? Are they similar to the Democrat party in the States??

What do these parties stand for? I'm amazed at the difference in politics in Canada and I find it riveting. It seems as if the focus is on working class families and making life easier for them. As you know (LOL), the U.S. presidential election in 2004 was marred by all this "moral issues" bs. The majority of people were discussing that they voted for "moral issues". That's a terrible platform to vote for a candidate on...and scary, as well, shows you where the U.S. is going. Anyhow, enough of my rambling.

So far I know these are the parties:

Liberals
Conservatives
NDP
Green
Marijuana

Who else am I missing?

On Edit: I am not trying to offend anyone here by asking so many questions, I'm truly curious how the system works in Canada...so if I have offended by chance, please forgive me.

They're a right-of-centre party whose main goal is to negotiate Quebec's separation from Canada, thereby preserving French Canadians' national identity and culture from Anglo domination. What they plan to do about the large British and Aboriginal minorities in Quebec, I don't know - but I suspect it would involve armbands with big red "A"s on them.

But their real governing philosophy would be anyone's guess. Since they will never govern Canada (by definition) it is a moot point.

Although they will probably never clearly identify their affiliation on this. They are a block after all and by definition composed of people of many different views who are together to achieve a specific goal.

is the Canadian Action Party or CAP, and there's a few more fringe parties as well e.g. Communists Party, Marxist-Leninist Party, Marijuana party, Liberterian party etc.

CAP is very much a minor player right now, but they are running a few candidates in this election. The main planks in the party platform centre around getting out of NAFTA, FTAA etc as they see these deals as a sell out to business interests and the thin edge of the wedge for a further integration of Canada into the US and a surrender of sovereignty to US business interests. Another plank in their platform centred around monetary reform, ie. getting the government to finance projects etc using loans and funds from the Bank of Canada, instead of from commercial banks. The Bank of Canada is Canada's central bank which is sort of like the Federal Reserve in the US, except the Bank of Canada is owned by the Canadian government whereas the Federal Reserve is a corporation with shares owned by various commercial banking interests and not the government.

From the CAP web site www.canadianactionparty.ca


Getting back to the questions in your post, the NDP are most definitely to the left of the DLC and even the DNC and probably most members of the Democratic Party in the US, although some of the more lefty members of the DU board would probably be quite comfortable as an NDPer.

As a generalization, the Liberals might be considered roughly equivalent to the Democrats. The Conservative Party would be on the right of the Liberal Party, but for current public consumption and in campaigning for the upcoming election, not as rabidly right wing as the Republican party, although the fear is that if they were to win a majority government and their leader Stephen Harper gets the reins of power in his grasp he could pull a Bush on us, ie. promising to be a centrist and a compassionate conservative for election purposes, but taking the country well to the right as soon as an opportunity to do so presents itself.

To get a better feel for the parties and where they stand on the issues and on the political spectrum, check out the comments in this LBN thread started by Canadian DUer Minstrel Boy a few days ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2031790

I appreciate the information, and I will definitely look at what was posted.

I'm hoping the best for Canada, I don't want to see it go down the path the U.S. has gone.

There are 4 parties that hold seats in the House of Commons:

Bloc Quebecois-A Quebec separatist party that leans left. Not a factor outside of Quebec, but within Quebec it's them and the Liberals that vie for seats. The Conservatives have made gains there this campaign, and if they're lucky might grab a couple of seats in that province.

Liberals- A centrist party which generally postures itself towards the left while campaigning. (This has the effect of them leaving campaign promises upkept.) Very fiscally responsible, but often at the expense of social programs. For the most part they're pretty sensible stewards of state, but they steer off course occasionally. For example, quite a number of their backbenchers voted against same-sex marriage; they've parachuted some Hahvahd professor goof, Michael Ignatieff, to run in a Toronto riding and he curiously thinks Bush's invasion of Iraq was a good idea (and some elements of the Liberal Party fancy him as a future leader); and a Liberal MP has been mired in a mini-scandal for being aggressively lobbied by the entertainment industry to write copyright legislation which is favourable to them.

NDP- A left-leaning social democratic party. In the last minority government they were the conscience of the government, negotiating the Liberals out of corporate tax cuts and substituted boosts in spending on social programs in their place. Some DUers try to export that "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" line to Canada, but the shoe doesn't really fit. First of all, the NDP polls nationally at 15-20%, not less than 5%. Also, due to the regional nature of Canadian politics, there are numerous ridings where the NDP isn't the third party. (They held 19 seats in the last government after all.) In several cases the top two parties are the Cons and the NDP, so voting Liberal would "help" the Cons. (*)

Conservative Party- The was formed from the uniting of the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform Party. The Progressive Conservatives tended to be socially liberal and economically conservative. (Even then, they weren't all Grover Norquist about it.) The Reform Party was pretty similar ideologically to today's GOP. In the unification process, the Reform Party really got the upper hand. In this campaign, Steven Harper, their leader, has been doing a pretty effective job of shutting up these elements and portraying himself as a moderate. So any boost in his support isn't a mandate for right-wing policies so much as it is an expression of voter's frustration with the Liberal Party who've been running the show for the last 12 years.

On edit: * I forgot the key breakdown in the Nader/NDP analogy: Nader's greatest achievement was to get Corvairs off the road. The NDP's Tommy Douglas in contrast brought universal healthcare to a nation.