2008 Canadian federal election

The 40th Canadian federal election, barring war or insurrection, must be called by February 13, 2011, five years after the return of the writs from the 39th federal election held on January 23, 2006. Traditionally in Canada the Prime Minister can select an election date of his or her choosing, usually at the four-year mark or when he or she believes they have the best chance of winning the election. However, as the preceding parliament will be led by a minority government, it is possible that an election will occur sooner as the opposition parties can bring down the government on a vote of confidence or that the Prime Minister will request that the Governor-General dissolve parliament for an early election in an attempt to win a majority.

On election night, more than 65% of eligible Canadian voters went to the polls to cast their vote in Canada's 39th federal general election. The Conservatives received the most votes, with 36% of the vote and 124 seats (now 125 from the switch of Liberal MP David Emerson). The Liberals won 103 seats (now 101), taking 30% of the vote. The Bloc Quebecois lost 3 seats, and lowering their score to 51 seats (now 50), with 11% of the vote. The New Democratic Party retained all their previous seats, in addition to 11 more, making their total 29 seats, with 18% of the vote. The green party received 5% of the vote, a minimal increase from the previous election, but this did not translate into any seats. Other parties constituted 1% of the total vote.

Canadians next chance to go to the polls will be Canada's 40th federal election, widely anticipated to take place in either 2007 or 2008. However, in the absence of the government falling on a confidence motion thus triggering an election, Stephen Harper's government could formally last until Winter 2011.

The parliament preceding this election is led by the smallest minority ever in the Canadian House of Commons — a government with just 40.6% of the seats — and led by the Conservative Party of Canada. Though the average length of a minority parliament in Canada is 1 year, 5 months and 22 days, minorities led by the former Progressive Conservative Party tended to be much shorter: the longest Conservative minority was just 6 months and 19 days. [1] As there is almost no chance of the governement losing a confidence vote until the Liberal party selects a new leader, and Harper highly unlikely to call an election before the Liberal party selects a new leader (out of convention), Harper's government will likely last over 8 months (after the December 3rd leadership convention)

On May 30, 2006, the Conservatives tabled Bill C-16 which would amend the Canada Elections Act which would provide for fixed elections. The bill states that there will be an election in 2009, and it would be the first to have a fixed election date, the third Monday in October (October 19, 2009). However, the House may still fall before then, and there may be an election still in 2007 or 2008. The bill is currently in its first reading.

It has been rumoured by political pundits that Harper would like to have an election in fall 2006 or spring 2007 in hopes of attaining a majority of the Commons seats. It has been speculated that he would hold off on an election though until Quebec has a provincial election as to measure the strength of federalist feelings in that province

Timeline

• February 6, 2006 - Harper Cabinet is sworn in. Liberal David Emerson crosses the floor to join the new government thus changing the standings in the Canadian House of Commons to Conservatives 125, Liberals 102, BQ 51, NDP 29, Independent 1. This could be potentially be very relevant numberswise, as it now allows a Conservative-NDP voting block to command a majority.
• February 19, 2006 - Bloc Québécois House Leader Michel Gauthier announces that his party will vote to keep the government in office for a "good while". [2] So long as the Bloc votes with the government on confidence measures, they will pass.
• April 3, 2006 - Peter Milliken is re-elected Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons becoming only the third Opposition MP to serve as Speaker. The Speaker only votes in the event of a tie and then must vote to support the "status quo". The election of a Liberal Speaker effectively gives the Conservatives an additional cushion by denying the Liberals a vote. Numerically, the Conservatives can now pass legislation and win motions of confidence with the support of any one Opposition party, i.e. the Conservatives and the NDP combined have enough seats to win a vote, as do the Tories and BQ combined or the Tories and the Liberals (assuming all MPs are present and vote without any defections).
• August 28, 2006 Bloc Member of Parliament Benoît Sauvageau dies in a car accident.
• September 20, 2006 Liberal MP for London North Centre Joe Fontana resigns to run for mayor of London, Ontario.

Target seats

The following is a list of ridings which were narrowly lost by the indicated party. For instance, under the Liberal column are the 30 seats in which they came closest to winning but did not. Listed is the name of the riding, followed by the party which was victorious (in parentheses) and the margin, in terms of percentage of the vote, by which the party lost.

These ridings are likely to be targeted by the specified party because the party lost them by a very slim margin in the 2006 election.

Up to 15 are shown, with a maximum margin of victory of 15%.

* Indicates incumbent not running again. To clarify further; this is a list of federal election winners with their party in parentheses, and their margin of victory as a percentage of the vote.

File:Conservative Party of Canada.png	File:Lib-can.png
Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK (Lib) 0.3% Brant, ON (Lib) 0.9% West Nova, NS (Lib) 1.1% Vancouver Island North, BC (NDP) 1.1% Oakville, ON (Lib) 1.3% West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC (Lib) 1.5% London West, ON (Lib) 2.2% Madawaska—Restigouche, NB (Lib) 2.4% Newton—North Delta, BC (Lib) 3.6% Saint Boniface, MB (Lib) 3.6% Saint John, NB (Lib) 3.6% Mississauga South, ON (Lib) 4.1% Richmond, BC (Lib) 4.1% Random—Burin—St. George's, NL (Lib) 4.7% Kenora, ON (Lib) 5.5%	Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON (Con) <0.1% Winnipeg South, MB (Con) 0.3% Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON (Con) 0.4% Tobique—Mactaquac, NB (Con) 0.9% St. Catharines, ON (Con) 1.1% Ahuntsic, QC (BQ) 1.7% Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC (Con) 1.9% London—Fanshawe, ON (NDP) 1.9% Ottawa—Orléans, ON (Con) 2.0% Simcoe North, ON (Con) 2.0% Brossard—La Prairie, QC (BQ) 2.2% Papineau, QC (BQ) 2.2% Burnaby—Douglas, BC (NDP) 2.6% Barrie, ON (Con) 2.7% Kitchener—Conestoga, ON (Con) 2.7%
File:Bloc Quebecois 2004 Logo.png	File:CA NDP 2004 Logo.png
Louis-Hébert, QC (Con) 0.4% Beauport—Limoilou, QC (Con) 1.6% Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC (Con) 2.7% Hull—Aylmer, QC (Lib) 3.3% Honoré—Mercier, QC (Lib) 3.8% Pontiac, QC (Con) 5.0% Laval—Les Îles, QC (Lib) 6.1% Outremont, QC (Lib) 6.3% Bourassa, QC (Lib) 11.4% Jonquière—Alma, QC (Con) 12.8% Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC (Ind) 13.9%	Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON (Lib) 1.0% Newton—North Delta, BC (Lib) 1.6% Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON (Lib) 1.7% Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON (Lib) 3.7% Nickel Belt, ON (Lib) 4.6% Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC (Lib) 4.6% Welland, ON (Lib) 4.8% Oshawa, ON (Con) 5.2% Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC (Con) 5.2% Beaches—East York, ON (Lib) 5.4% Kenora, ON (Lib) 5.7% Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK (Con) 6.5% Central Nova, NS (Con) 7.8% South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS (Con) 8.3% Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC (Con) 8.3%

Cabinet ministers elected by a margin of less than 10% in 2006

1. Tony Clement, Health and Federal Economic Initiaitve for Northern Ontario: 0.1% over Lib in Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
2. Lawrence Cannon, Transport, Infrastructure and Communities: 5.0% over BQ in Pontiac, QC
3. Jim Flaherty, Finance: 5.7% over Lib in Whitby—Oshawa, ON
4. Rob Nicholson, House Leader: 5.9% over Lib in Niagara Falls, ON
5. Carol Skelton, Revenue and Western Diversification: 6.5% over NDP in Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
6. Peter MacKay, Foreign Affairs and Atlantic Opportunities: 7.8% over NDP in Central Nova, NS
7. John Baird, Treasury Board: 9.0% over Lib in Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Opinion Polls

Since the 2006 election, polls have generally indicated a slight decline in the Liberal and Bloc votes and a slight increase in the Conservative and NDP votes. However, this can be attributed to the current leaderless state of the Liberal Party before its leadership election and the slight boost in popularity generally experienced by any new government.

The dates listed are normally the date the survey was concluded. Most news and political affairs sources use the convention of using the last date that the poll was conducted in order to establish the inclusion/exclusion of current events.

Polling Firm	Last Date of Polling	Link	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Conservative align="center"| File:Conservative Party of Canada.png Conservative	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Liberal align="center"|File:Lpcsmall.jpg Liberal	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/NDP align="center"|File:Ndpsmall.jpg New Democratic	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/BQ align="center"|File:Bqsmall.jpg Bloc Québécois	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Green align="center"|File:Gpcsmall.jpg Green
Strategic Counsel	September 17, 2006	HTML	35	26	19	12	8
EKOS	September 14, 2006	PDF	38.7	28.8	17.0	8.4	7.0
Decima Research	September 4, 2006		34	30	14	11	10
Decima Research	August 28, 2006	PDF	33	28	19	10	8
Ipsos-Reid	August 24, 2006		38	29	17	10	5
SES Research	August 23, 2006	PDF	36	30	18	11	5
Decima Research	August 13, 2006	PDF	36	29	15	10	7
Decima Research	July 31, 2006	PDF	32	31	16	11	8
Strategic Counsel	July 30, 2006	HTML	38	29	15	11	8
Ipsos-Reid	July 272006	HTML	39	27	17	10	7
Decima Research Without Greens Surveyed With Greens Surveyed	July 232006 July 162006 July 162006	HTML PDF	36 36 36	30 30 29	17 19 16	- 11 10	- - 8
Strategic Counsel	July 162006	HTML	37	26	18	11	8
Environics	June 232006	HTML	39	25	21	9	4
Decima Research	June 182006	HTML	38	28	19	10	-
Strategic Counsel	June 82006	PDF	36	27	19	9	9
Decima Research	May 282006	PDF	38	29	21	8	-
Ipsos-Reid	May 182006	HTML	43	25	15	9	5
SES Research	May 92006	PDF	38	28	19	9	6
Strategic Counsel	May 32006	HTML	35	31	16	10	9
Decima Research	April 232006	HTML	41	26	19	10	-
Strategic Counsel	April 092006	HTML	39	29	14	11	5
Environics	March 312006	HTML	41	22	21	10	5
Decima Research	March 262006	HTML	39	28	19	11	-
Ipsos-Reid	March 232006	HTML	38	28	19	9	5
Decima Research	March 132006	HTML	37	28	19	10	-
Decima Research	February 272006	HTML	35	28	21	10	-
Ipsos-Reid	February 232006	HTML	39	27	20	8	5
Strategic Counsel	February 212006	HTML	39	28	19	8	-
Decima Research	February 132006	PDF	35	25	24	8	-
SES Research	February 92006	PDF	33	34	18	9	7
Election 2006	January 232006	HTML	36.3	30.2	17.5	10.5	4.5

Incumbent MPs not running for re-election

Conservatives

• Ken Epp, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, Alberta [3]
• John Williams, Edmonton—St. Albert, Alberta [4]

Liberals

• Brenda Chamberlain, Guelph, Ontario [5]
• Joe Fontana, London North Centre, Ontario [6]

Bloquistes

• Yvan Loubier, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Quebec [7]

External links

Government links

• Elections Canada
  • Elections Canada nominations database
• Parliament of Canada
• Prime Minister of Canada

General links

• Maple Leaf Web - Canada's Premier Political Education Website
• Canada Election 2006 News and Discussion
• Election Prediction Project
• LISPOP - Projected Distribution of Seats
• Pollingreport.ca
• UBC Election Stock Market 2006
• Nodice Elections: Canada
• democraticSPACE Poll Tracking
• democraticSPACE Predictions
• Politics Canada
• TrendLines Riding Projections
• Hill and Knowlton election predictor
• Canada elections links wiki via Democracies Online
• The Blogging Tories - Conservative Blogs
• LibLogs - Liberal Blogs
• The Blogging Dippers - New Democrat Blogs
• Fairvote Canada - About proportional representation

Party websites

Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Conservative/row

Conservative Party of Canada

Liberal Party of Canada

Bloc Quebecois

New Democratic Party

Green Party of Canada

Template:Canadian politics/party colours/AAEVP/row

Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party

Canadian Action Party

Christian Heritage Party of Canada

Communist Party of Canada

First Peoples National Party

People's Political Power of Canada

Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Libertarian/row

Libertarian Party of Canada

Marijuana Party of Canada

Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada

Progressive Canadian Party

Western Block Party

Preceded by 2006 federal election

Canadian federal elections

Succeeded by 41st federal election