[tomder55]

It looks like Steve Harper's minority conservative government is going to get a vote of no confidence against it.The liberals will force a new election;probably in May. This will be the third election in five years.
Debate sets stage for government's defeat - Canada - CBC News
I predict right now that Harper remains PM after the election ,and there is a good chance he'll run a majority government when the dust settles .

[tomder55]

Michael Ignatieff the liberal leader for all practical purposes is the White House's representative to Canada... sorta Obama's Canada Czar.
He has an association and long time friendship with Obots ;key advisors to President Obama ,Samantha Power,and Larry Summers.

What I've found interesting ,and it may answer some puzzles from those who believed that Obama represented a complete rejection of the Bush approach to the war against jihadistan ,is that Ignatieff is essentially a neocon lite .

He wrote 'The Lesser Evil ' which argues that Western Democracies would have to lean to love the 'lesser evil 'approach to dealing with jihadistan . These lesser evils include indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations,assassinations, and pre-emptive wars .
I think that Obama advisors like Power ,who by all accounts was very influential in this recent Libyan intervention ,and is a philosophical proponent of R2P(responsibility to protect) foreign policy ,has convinced the President that the 'lesser evils ' is the proper approach.

Getting back to the perception that he is just Obama's plant in Canada... that seems to have some validity in the mind of the Canadian public. Many have called him a carpetbagger;having lived in the US for over 30 years ,chiefly as a Harvard professor ,and never living in the district he represents before he ran there.

It doesn't appear that his electoral chances are good unless he forges one of those funky coalition governments together if Harper doesn't get a majority.