Watercolor by Lyn Snow

Canada’s first holiday election campaign in 26 years starts today, after the minority Liberal government was defeated in an historic non-confidence vote last night.

Battle lines were drawn for a bitter and unusually long election campaign mere minutes after the Liberals were toppled by a united opposition in the non-confidence vote — 171 to 133 — that pulled the plug on the government after only 17 months.

Polls suggest a toss-up that seems likely to result in the second minority government in just over a year and a half.

The party leaders are expected to hit the road today for the December-January campaign, a rarity in Canadian politics.

Across Canada, there essentially are 5 political parties representing as many trends. Publicly, the oldest party, the Progressive Conservatives is merged with the Conservative Party. Privately, the alliance gets rancorous over leaders who try to ape Bush Republikans, including kissy-kissy with fundamentalist true believers. Bloc Quebecois will stick to its regional strengths. Liberals’ strong suit is the budget surplus, strong economy and employment — all turned around since the last Conservative government — which should maintain them as the largest vote-getters. The New Democratic Party was the critical element in bringing the Martin government down — over failures on issues like sustaining health care and education — and the overriding issues of government corruption and cronyism. Those brought damned near everyone together!

It sounds familiar except, of course, there are strong independent political parties in Canada ready to represent voters less concerned with conformity than here in the US.