Yesterday the writ was dropped, which means the Canadian election campaign is now formally and legally under way.

It will be an exhausting 39 days to listen to much blather with some intelligent discussion from time to time!

I will drop election news here from time to time and post a non-partisan comparison of party platforms once they are all out. Currently only the NDP has a full platform out w/costing. I expect the others will all be out within the next few days.

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For those looking for quick primer to follow the action.

Canada has for the last few decades had 3 major national parties.

The Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP [[roughly, right, centre and left).

However, there has also been a regional party in Quebec called the Bloc Quebecois which typically wins between 5-15 seats which can affect an electoral outcome.

New this year is the Green Party as a factor, currently holding 2 seats and projected to win between 4-10 or so.

As well as the People's Party which is essentially somewhat anti-immigration Conservatives.....I say somewhat as they aren't proposing to shut the borders, but to cut back on immigration, particularly of the non-economic variety.

They are currently only believed to be in contention in a single seat, however, they may poach enough Conservative votes to hand seats to other parties in some constituencies.

The current polls have the Conservatives, led by Andrew Scheer in a dead heat with Justin Trudeau's Liberals at about 34%.

With every other party much lower, at NDP 13%, Greens 11%, BQ, 4% and PPC 3%.

The seat projections tend to suggest a Liberal victory, because of the way their vote is distributed vs the Conservatives, but this is far from certain.

Should they win, however, they may fall short of a majority and might require support of the NDP or Greens to govern.

That is to be determined.

CBC Poll Tracker is here:

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elec...racker/canada/

Election Date: October 21, 2019