Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's gamble to call an early election already looks to be paying off as his ruling Conservatives stride into a large lead, helped in part by the problems troubling his main rival. The Conservatives, who only have a minority government, were virtually tied with the opposition Liberals in opinion polls for months until Sept. 1, when Harper made clear he was likely to call an election – now scheduled for Oct. 14. But a string of new polls has put him within striking distance of the first Conservative majority government for 20 years. “Something's happened, something's shifting,” said Antonia Maioni, who heads the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University in Montreal. The campaign only started on Sunday, but some experts say they do not see how Harper can fail to be reelected with at least another minority, barring a major disasters. He has many advantages. The left-leaning vote in Canada is split between the Liberals and two other parties, while the Conservatives have no rivals. And as prime minister, Harper can set the agenda. He has a clear and simple way of communicating that contrasts starkly with Liberal leader Stephane Dion. “When you see him handling himself in front of the camera – where elections are fought these days – he just seems to be in control and seems to have a mastery of the situation,” said Professor Paul Thomas at the University of Manitoba. Best prime minister Polls consistently show most Canadians think Harper would make the best prime minister. Harper has two messages for voters: only he can steer Canada through economic weakness caused by the US slowdown; and a carbon tax that Dion has made the mainstay of his election platform would be dangerous. Dion, a French-speaking former academic, speaks heavily accented English, and is hardly the best person to explain a complex carbon tax proposal. “I think the Liberals have got a problem trying to get their message out, embodied in a leader who has trouble making a strong connection with voters,” said Thomas. Dion is particularly unpopular in his home province of Quebec, which has 75 of the 308 seats in Parliament. The Conservatives have 11 Quebec seats and are eyeing the 48 seats held by the separatist Bloc Quebecois. Harper has made great efforts to woo Bloc voters and some strategists predict he could win an extra 15 seats in the province. “Dion is not connecting. It seems to me people are voting Liberal despite him, not because of him. Certainly, that's the case in Quebec,” said Maioni. Dion, complaining that voters did not know who he was or what he stood for, launched a website on Tuesday to introduce himself to Canadians – an implicit admission that after 21 months in the job, he is still a mystery. “My dream was to ... work with animals. I became interested in people later on,” he told reporters. Yet Harper, who comes across as cold and aloof, is not sure yet of a majority government and rivals consistently accuse him of harboring an extremist agenda. The Conservatives, popular in rural areas and western regions, have yet to break into the country's three main cities – Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. John Wright, a pollster for Ipsos-Reid, said the election would be decided in densely populated parts of Ontario and Quebec, which between them account for more than half of the seats in Parliament. He said a recent poll by his firm shows Dion “weak in everything. But the thing that has been holding back Harper in that crucial area of Ontario and parts of Quebec is the ... sense of hubris and sense of a hidden agenda.” Wright predicted the Conservatives would win 137 seats with the Liberals winning 106. “This means Harper is 18 seats short of a majority, and Dion is strong enough to stay on as leader,” he said. It also means Harper would still be prime minister. - Reuters __
