Photos: Campaign highlights (and some low moments)
A recap of some of the highlights of the federal election campaign
Tuesday, March 29: On the season finale of his show, television personality Rick Mercer airs a rant challenging young Canadians to get to a polling station and vote on election day, sparking the creation of “vote mobs” on university campuses across Canada. The vote mob phenomenon begins with a video posted to the Internet showing a huge and upbeat crowd of students from the University of Guelph, west of Toronto, who are running around with signs saying they plan to vote. It is a direct response to Mr. Mercer’s rant, with the overriding message: “Surprise, we’re voting.” Mr. Mercer later tells CTV’s Question Period, “In the back of my mind I was thinking perhaps some of them would write a nasty letter to the local paper. But no, they’ve started these vote mobs.” At least 35 vote mobs are organized across Canada, including this one on April 20 at the University of British Columbia.The Globe and Mail
Friday, March 25: Prime Minister Stephen Harper's second minority government falls. Early in the afternoon, 156 opposition MPs – all of the Liberals (including party leader Michael Ignatieff, pictured here), New Democrats and Bloquistes present in the House of Commons – rise to support a motion of no-confidence. The motion declares the government to be in contempt of Parliament for its refusal to share information that opposition members said they needed to properly assess legislation put before them. The next day, Governor-General David Johnston grants Mr. Harper's request to dissolve Parliament, and the election is on. Mr. Harper immediately frames it as a choice of who is best suited to lead Canada while the global economy's recovery is still fragile.The Canadian Press
Wednesday, March 30: A consortium of Canada’s broadcasters rule out a face-off between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff and say they will exclude the Green Party from the official election debates. The decision to air debates involving only the leaders of the four main parties in Parliament follows a public battle between the Conservative and Liberal leaders, but also controversial backroom dealings between the country’s major television stations and four biggest political parties.Reuters
Sunday, April 3: Eager to dispel concerns about his health, NDP Leader Jack Layton dances a jig at a sugar shack in Quebec to the accompaniment of traditional French-Canadian folk songs. The NDP Leader has been climbing podiums at campaign stops with the use of a forearm crutch after hip surgery in March to repair a hairline fracture. The biggest fear, he says, is that he could fall and break the healing joint. Anyone who asked him about his health during the first week of this election campaign receives the same answer: “It's getting better and better every day.”The Canadian Press
Sunday, April 3: A 19-year-old University of Western Ontario student says she was reduced to tears after being expelled from a Stephen Harper rally in London. Awish Aslam (pictured here) tells The London Free Press that a friend had registered them online before the rally with the help of her friend's father, a card-carrying Conservative. Soon after she had arrived at the event, she and her friend were asked to follow an official out of the rally. He then ripped off their name tags, tore them up and told them to leave. “He said, ‘We know you guys have ties to the Liberal Party through Facebook’,” Ms. Aslam told the newspaper. “He said … ‘You are no longer welcome here’.” Dimitri Soudas, the chief spokesman for Mr. Harper on the Tory campaign, apologizes for the incident through the media and asks Ms. Aslam to contact him.The Globe and Mail
Sunday, April 3: Michael Ignatieff launches the Liberal Party election platform in Ottawa, an $8-billion package that focuses on helping students pay for university, helping families care for ailing family members, an increase in support for low-income seniors and a $500-million child-care initiative. He says the Liberals would pay for their promises by raising corporate taxes that had been lowered by the Harper government.The Canadian Press
Monday, April 4: Prime Minister Stephen Harper denies knowledge of the full extent of his former adviser Bruce Carson’s criminal record after a news report revealed that Mr. Carson (pictured here) was convicted on five counts of fraud – three more than previously known. Mr. Carson also received court-ordered psychiatric treatment before becoming one of Mr. Harper's closest advisers. “Had I known these things, obviously I wouldn’t have hired him,” the Conservative Leader says. Mr. Harper told reporters he knew some of Mr. Carson’s criminal history but not all of it.The Canadian Press
Tuesday, April 5: Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is thwarted in her last-ditch effort to be included in the televised leaders’ debates when Federal Court judge Marc Nadon decides not to make an emergency ruling on the case before the nationally televised discussions. His decision is a big blow for the Green Party. Ms. May is seen here waiting to speak to the media about the decision.AFP / Getty Images
Friday, April 8: Tory Leader Stephen Harper launches his party’s election platform in Mississauga, Ont., with a promise to rein in government spending and eliminate the deficit by 2014-2015, a year earlier than his government had promised in the failed budget that triggered the election. The platform also contained new spending aimed at the party’s target audience, such as installing defibrillators in every hockey arena, a $2.5-billion annual tax break for parents and $2-billion in compensation for Quebec for sales-tax changes. Under pressure from the Liberals and NDP, Harper subsequently vowed to continue the six per cent annual increases in health-care spending currently set to expire in 2014, something he hadn’t mentioned in the platform launch.Reuters
Sunday, April 10: NDP Leader Jack Layton launches his party platform in Toronto, touting a four-year plan to balance the books that includes $14.4 billion in new spending and $3-billion worth of tax cuts in the first year. Mr. Layton vows to save billions by cutting fossil fuel subsidies and raising the corporate tax rate to 19.5 per cent. He also offers a job-creation tax credit for employers of $4,500 for every new hire and to limit credit-card interest rates to a maximum of 5 percentage points over the prime rate. On the health-care front, he says the NDP will hire 1,200 doctors over 10 years and increase access to home care to 100,000 more Canadians.Reuters
Sunday, April 10: Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe suggests rescheduling the French-language debate, which was slated for April 14, because the Montreal Canadiens were to face the Boston Bruins in their first playoff game that evening. “All I’m asking is that the debate take place Wednesday [April 13] so that Quebeckers have as much access to this debate as Canadians,” Mr. Duceppe said. “We all know that hockey is very popular in Canada and in Quebec, which is why it would be a better idea to push the French debate back to allow hockey fans to watch the debate as well as the game on Thursday night.” Rather than take issue with the Bloc leader’s nationalistic semantics, the other party heads conceded the point.The Canadian Press
Tuesday, April 12: The English-language leader's debate: Pundits agree that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff delivers some stinging sound bites and establishes himself as Stephen Harper’s strongest rival, but fails to alter Canadians’ impressions of the Conservative Leader or to give them a more positive impression of himself in the televised English-language debate. Mr. Harper emerges from the debate looking the most prime ministerial. NDP Leader Jack Layton lands a solid blow on Mr. Ignatieff when he attacks the Liberal Leader's attendance record.AFP / Getty Images
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - In the French-language debate, as Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff tussle over sovereignty and NDP Leader Jack Layton suggests he would move toward reopening the Constitution, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper uses the moment to underscore why the country needs to move beyond the recent succession of minority governments. Despite a strong performance by Mr. Duceppe in the debate, Mr. Layton appears to make the most headway toward courting the soft nationalist vote he needs for an eventual Quebec breakthrough, surging in post-debate polls in the province.Reuters
Saturday, April 16: The Liberals unleash the second of two new attack ads aimed at contrasting Michael Ignatieff with Stephen Harper. The ads – one on health care and the other on the Conservative Leader’s demands for a majority government – suggest to Canadians the “stakes are too high” to risk their vote on the Tories.
Monday, April 18: The Liberals get called out on the attack ad for misquoting Stephen Harper, incorrectly attributing the words “It’s past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act.” The words were in fact written by David Somerville, president of the National Citizens Coalition – an organization that Mr. Harper once led. The Liberals shrugged off the error and replaced the quote with another in the same vein by Mr. Harper.
Thursday, April 21: A new EKOS Research poll finds that Jack Layton and his surging New Democrats are poised to got from 36 to 60 seats in the House, denying the Harper Conservatives their coveted majority. The EKOS survey has the NDP tied with the Liberals at 24.7 per cent, while the Tories are at 34.4 per cent nationally. The Bloc is at 6.5 per cent and the Green Party is at 7.8 per cent. Under the EKOS scenario the Tories would see their seat count reduced from 143 to 134; the Liberals would gain five more seats, going from 77 to 82. Mr. Layton’s gains would come mostly in Quebec, where the EKOS poll projects the party moving from one seat to 14. It all comes at the expense of the separatist Bloc Québécois, which is projected to lose 15 seats.Reuters
Tuesday, April 26: Elections Canada reports unexepected record turnout at advance polls. Here a woman in Ottawa makes her way to cast her vote in a church under a picture depicting Jesus Christ at the Last Supper on Friday, April 22.The Canadian Press
Friday, April 29: Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen watch the wedding of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton on television in Montreal. The Harpers had been invited to attend the wedding but turned down the invitation because of the election campaign.CHRIS WATTIE/Reuters
Friday, April 29: NDP Leader Jack Layton found himself under attack going into the final weekend of the campaign when the new right-wing broadcaster, Sun News TV, ran a report saying he was found in a massage clinic when it was visited by police in 1996. Mr. Layton called the report a "smear campaign," and his wife, fellow NDP MP Olivia Chow, released a statement saying he had told her about the incident when it occured. Both insisted that he was innocent, and that he had booked a massage at the clinic not knowing it was under police investigation, Mr. Layton co-operated with police and was never charged. "Any insinuation of wrongdoing on the part of my husband is completely and utterly false," Ms. Chow said. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and Tory Leader Stephen Harper both refused to comment on the report. Mr. Layton is seen here campaigning in British Columbia on Friday, April 29.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press