Did you know that Canada might elect a new leader today?

Today, Canada holds its 42nd general election, after an exceptionally long campaign (72 days!). In Canada, we do not vote directly for our national leader, the Prime Minister. Instead, we elect local candidates as Members of Parliament (MPs), and the Prime Minister is chosen by the party with the greatest number of elected MPs.

There are 23 federal political parties in Canada this year, but only three stand a good chance to win the election: the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party (or NDP), and the Conservative Party. Two smaller parties, the Green Party (which focuses on environmental issues) and the Bloc Québécois (which exists only to promote Quebec’s interests at the national level), will also have an effect on the final vote tally.

The party leaders are Justin Trudeau (Liberal), the son of former PM Pierre Trudeau, who was possibly best known for enacting martial law during the October Crisis in the 1970s. Pierre Trudeau was PM for a total of 15 years, and had strong views about what kind of country Canada should be. Many people feel that Justin Trudeau will bring a return to traditional Canadian values; others feel that he is young and inexperienced (though I should point out that he has more experience in government than Barack Obama did when he took office), still others think that his Liberal Party is too conservative (reminiscent of how the Democratic Party is seen by American liberals).

The NDP is led by Tom Mulcair, who has had a long and varied career in politics. He is known for speaking his mind even when it might be politically costly. He is certainly the most liberal of the party leaders.

And Stephen Harper, the Conservative leader, is, well, not a well-liked man. He pretty much takes all of his cues from the Republican politics, and I could go on at great length about how his leadership has cost Canada the world’s respect. His campaign has recently thrown most of its energy into stirring up fear and hatred towards Muslims, demanding that the niqab be banned in certain settings and making it seem like ISIS is a great national threat.

Our greatest fear is that, as in the last election, the liberal vote (and that is most of us, folks) will be split between the Liberals and the NDP, resulting in yet another Conservative government. For this reason, there is a movement promoting strategic voting (or ABC voting – Anything But Conservative), which entails using polling results to decide which local candidate has the best chance of beating the Conservative in that riding.

Here is yesterday’s piece by John Oliver explaining why we are going to be biting our nails to the quick tonight. He misses a lot of the major issues, but nonetheless catches some of the surreal qualities of our political situation. Canadian comedian Rick Mercer regularly posts his own rants about it all.

You can take a look at the most recent poll projections at Three Hundred Eight.com, our equivalent of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com. If you’d like to know which party you might align with, try your hand at the Vote Compass, a survey that graphically compares your own views with the major party platforms.

Election results will start rolling in around 7pm Eastern Daylight Time, and can be followed in a number of ways, or just Google “Canada election results”, and you’ll see Google’s interactive election coverage map. Or try going to your local pub and seeing if they’re showing live coverage for ex-pats.

Care to share any questions or thoughts that you might have about this event?