I'm A Lumberjack and I'm OK--Oh Canada!

We'll know this week whether Stephen Harper's Conservative Party can form a new government in Canada. The Canadian elections now seem to borrow the worst parts of our own. This campaign saw the overuse of robotcalls or demoncalls as one Canadian called them. Rejection of Harper's Government comes from criticism of the country's human rights records, his abuse of the government's critics both inside and outside Parliament and his generally ham-fisted way of governing.

The elections have already seen a suprising resurgence of support for the NDP, which has made inroads in Quebec and gaining force in British Colombia. By the end of the voting, according to polls,it's looking like the NDP will emerge as the second-largest party in Canada because of the efforts of Jack Layton. The re-emergence of the NDP has forced Harper to spend his closing days campaigning coast to coast to snag some of the Liberals' votes.

The campaign from an American point of view had some fascinating developments. First,months ago FOX News wanted to open up shop in Canada but they were rejected. A Quaint Canadian law said you can not knowingly lie in the news. The Harper government wanted this rescinded so that Fox News could open up shop. The Parliament refused.

Second, in a parliamentary election how can you effectively use a smear campaign. That's actually quite an interesting question. Harper now seeks Liberal votes but this was after Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was gutted by a series of television ads that suggested he had lied about voting in American elections. Ignatieff had been a Harvard professor before moving back to Canada and the ads contained clips of him urging his "fellow Americans" to vote. Whether he did or did not vote in American elections, I have no idea but they were effective ads.

Now you have to move on to trash the NDP. At the end of this past week, news erupted that Jack Layton had visited a massage parlor years ago. I don't know how hung up Canadians are about the sex lives of their politicians but this element had all the fingerprints of an American political operative. It turns out that Layton's wife knew about it at the time and didn't find it troubling.

Polling suggests that the Conservative Party will win but that it may have trouble forming a majority government. Harper, who had been a big ally of George W,presides over a Canada that has become a major exporter of oil and whose currency has soared in value against the dollar. Depending on which Canadian you talked to, this is either a good thing or a bad thing. Harper is campaigning on his economic record since Canada escaped the global economic collapse in 2008.