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Some quick takes on interesting races in MB, SK, and AB:
MANITOBA
CHURCHILL
Tina Keeper won this for the Liberals in 2006, partly on the strength of a split in the NDP vote. Back then, incumbent MP Bev Desjarlais, who had quit the NDP caucus, was trying to defend her seat in a race that also included NDP candidate Nikki Ashton. With Desjarlais and Ashton splitting things, Keeper came up the middle. In 2008, Ashton is back for a re-match and Desjarlais — well, she went to work for Tory minister Greg Thompson right after the last election. This riding could swing NDP.
SAINT BONIFACE
During this campaing, whenever I have asked Liberal, Tory, or NDP strategists about Manitoba and how the standings there may change on Oct. 14, everyone tells me that Liberal Raymond Simard is in trouble in this riding. The Conservative candidate Shelly Glover is Winnipeg police officer and could win here.
SASKATCHEWAN
BATTLEFORDS-LLOYDMINSTER
This is the riding where embattled Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz hopes to be returned and, listeriosis jokes notwithstanding, he probably will. The NDP's Bob Woloshyn stands to gain if Battlefords voters are not ready to forgive Ritz his sense of humour.
DESNETHÉ-MISSINIPPI-CHURCHILL RIVER
The most northern riding in the province was won by Conservative Rob Clarke in a byelection last year. Liberal Gary Merasty won it a hair in 2006. Merasty beat Conservative Jeremy Harrison who won it by a nose in 2004. Clarke is expected to hold this riding for the Tories but the challenger is Liberal David Orchard — yes, that David Orchard — who has defied the pundits before with his political organization skills.
REGINA-LUMSDEN-LAKE CENTRE
Conservative Tom Lukiwski was caught on tape uttering nasty anti-gay slurs that angered some voters in his riding. There are probably not enough who are still angry enough to toss him aside.
WASCANA
There are few Liberals the Conservatives would like to beat more than Ralph Goodale, the lone Prairie Liberal. A poll by the local paper, though, indicates that Tories will be frustrated again and Goodale will be on his party's front bench once again.
ALBERTA
EDMONTON-STRATHCONA
Polls show that somewhere around 70 per cent of Albertas are voting Tory. So it's a bit of stretch to say there is anything interesting going on in Alberta on election day. Still, if we have to pick something to watch, it might be Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer's re-match with NDP candidate Linda Duncan. If there is an upset in Alberta, it could be here. Some Tory insiders tell me that Conservative incumbent Peter Goldring could also be in for a surprise in EDMONTON EAST. I'll believe it when I see it …

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elections

Quick takes on Ontario ridings worth watching and why:

BEACHES-EAST YORK
Marilyn Churley, who was in Bob Rae’s cabinet in Ontario, is back for a second crack at Lib incumbent Maria Minna. It’s Minna’s to lose but if there is another Toronto riding the NDP could pick up in addition to what they have, this might be it. Layton was campaigning in Toronto Monday hoping to pry it loose.

BRAMPTON-SPRINGDALE
This is Lib incumbent Ruby Dhalla’s riding, one of the most populous ridings in the country. Dhalla, young, good-looking, and popular should win but there have been rumours that she is nervous and has pulled out all the stops in the final week.

BURLINGTON
It took Conservative incumbent Mike Wallace three tries to knock off Liberal Paddy Torsney. Harper visited this riding in the last week of 2006 and again in the last week of 2008. And again, the main event is Wallace versus Torsney.

CHATHAM-KENT-ESSEX
ELGIN-MIDDLESEX-LONDON
LAMBTON-KENT-MIDDLESEX
SARNIA-LAMBTON
ESSEX
OSHAWA

Watch these ridings for the auto sector effect. Businesses and voters in these ridings depend heavily on a healthy auto sector. Harper had some money for Ford three days before the campaign got underway but, other than that, hasn’t been seen to be doing a lot for the sector. Rookie incumbent Conservatives are going to have to keep their head up in Chatham-Kent (Dave van Kesteren), Sarnia-Lambton (Pat Davidson) and Lambton-Kent (Bev Shipley). Even though two-term Cons MP Jeff Watson is the country’s first ever elected automaker (he worked on the line at Chrysler), he’ll be challenged to hold on to the Windsor-area riding of ESSEX. In Oshawa, the NDP is putting up a CAW leader, Mike Bilek Shields, who they hope will channel some GM anger at Conservative incumbent Colin Carrie.

EGLINTON-LAWRENCE
Should be a win for Liberal Joe Volpe in a walk but this could be the shocker of the night. Don’t know what the most shocking detail might be, that the Tories win one in Toronto or that Volpe is out.

GLENGARRY-PRESCOTT-RUSSELL
Voters here may be forgiven for being confused. The incumbent is Cons Pierre Lemieux who replaced longtime Liberal Don Boudria. This time around voters can choose between two Lemieuxs (Green candidate is Sylvie Lemieux) and another Boudria, Don’s son Dan. In any event, this looks to be a close race.

GUELPH
Liberal Brenda Chamberlain held this riding then she retired. The Lib candidate Frank Valeriote is a good choice but the Green Party’s Mike Nagy is doing well enough here.

HALDIMAND-NORFOLK
Diane Finley holds the unenviable title of “cabinet minister most likely to lose”. Mind you, some of my Tory sources think she'll be OK and that Jean Pierre Blackburn is the minister (other then Michael Fortier) who is in troube. If Finley loses, blame the long-running conflict in Caledonia between natives and a subdivision owner as well as unhappy tobacco farmers.

HALTON
Garth Turner’s riding. Need I say more? Also of note: Halton had the second most number of eligible voters — 98,768 — of any riding in 2006. Oak Ridges-Markham had more at 111,882.

HAMILTON EAST-STONEY CREEK
Was held by Liberal Tony Valeri who knocked off Sheila Copps in a nasty nomination battle in 2005 when parts of their ridings were combined. Didn’t help Tony, though. He got bumped by the NDP’s Wayne Marsden. Still, if Liberal wounds have healed, Larry Di Ianni could be the new MP.

HAMILTON MOUNTAIN
NDP MP Chris Charlton took at least three kicks at this can before winning. Can she hold if the left vote collapses back towards the Liberals?

HURON BRUCE
Paul Steckle, the Liberal MP who probably secretly voted for the Reform Party at one time, has retired clearing the way for Conservative candidate Ben Lobb to steal this one.

KENORA
Tories aren’t supposed to win anything north of Orillia in Ontario but party HQ thinks Greg Rickford has a chance to knock off Liberal incumbent Roger Valley. Mind you, the NDP is bullish on everything north of Superior — including KENORA, THUNDER BAY-RAINY RIVER, and THUNDER BAY-SUPERIOR NORTH, the riding last held by Liberal-turned-Conservative Joe Commuzzi.

OAKVILLE
Liberal Bonnie Brown, from the Lloyd Axworthy wing of her party, seems to have nine lives in this second most affluent riding in Canada. But if the Tories are sweeping the suburbs, Bonnie best look out …

OTTAWA CENTRE
Voters here may be giving NDP incumbent Paul Dewar a vote in recognition of the work his mother Marian did for Ottawa. Marian died in mid-campaign and Paul, already a strong candidate, may be too much for Penny Collenette, wife of David, the former Chretien-era cabinet minister.

OTTAWA SOUTH
A potential for another shocker. Could Lib David McGuinty lose to a Conservative here? He’s the favourite and he's hustling hard to justify that.

PARKDALE-HIGH PARK
NDP incumbent Peggy Nash versus Liberal kingmaker Gerard Kennedy. Will Dion’s coattails be enough to get Kennedy into the House of Commons. Don’t bet (much) on it.

PARRY SOUND-MUSKOKA
Tony Clement won this riding by a sliver over his Liberal challenger. This time around, it will be similarly tough. The Liberal is Jamie McGarvey, well known in the riding.

PETERBOROUGH
A bellwether. Sends MPs to sit on the government side. Dean del Maestro is Cons incumbent. Lib challenger is Betsy McGregor and she’s been giving him a helluva run.

ST. CATHARINES
Rick Dykstra won by a hair over Lib Walt Lewstewka in 2006. Lewstewka is back. There have been layoffs in this auto-industry town. Keep an eye out here — could go either way.

THUNDER BAY-SUPERIOR NORTH
We’ll all miss Liberal turned Conservative MP Joe Comuzzi, the Tony Bennett lookalike who was dubbed the Senator from Florida for his penchant for heading south at the winter break. Comuzzi quit the Libs because he couldn’t vote against a budget that contained funding for a new hospital in his riding. Will voters here remember the Conservative largesse? Probably not — they look set to elect an NDP candidate.

TRINITY SPADINA
The NDP’s Olivia Chow beat former Lib cabinet minister Tony Ianno in 2006. Now Ianno’s wife Christine Innes wants the seat back in the family.

If your office is like my office, the e-mail probably went around today to get in the election pool. Pick your seat counts for Tuesday's election, drop in a couple of bucks, and see what happens.
I'm in two pools. One I entered earlier this week in the national newsroom at Canwest News Service. Not everybody in that newsroom writes about politics. We've got folks who are entertainment writers, sports writers, lifestyle writers – you name it. And the politics types don't do any better in these pools than anyone else. (Yeah, yeah — I can hear your wisecracks from right here on my couch …) So, for the record, here's the picks I made Tuesday:
Conservatives: 119
Liberals: 113
Bloc Québecois: 45
NDP: 28
Green: 1
Independent: 2
Now, as I said, that was where I was earlier in the week. I was, at the time, looking at the campaigns and seeing a bit of momentum coming to the Liberals and the Bloc.
But now, at the end of the week — late Friday — I've come to a different view.
So, I jumped in the pool run out of the Hot Room in the Parliament Buildings.
The Hot Room is what we call the offices of the working press on Parliament Hill. It's on the third floor of the Centre Block. While the big news organizations on the Hill, like us, CBC, CTV, Canadian Press, and the Toronto Star have their own offices in buildings a block or two from Parliament Hill the Hot Room is the professional home base for journalists, like my friend Steve Maher of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, who are the only representative of his paper in Ottawa. Then, there's others, like Maclean's uber-blogger Kady O'Malley, who could, I suppose, hang out with Wells, Geddes, Wherry, and Petrou back in the Maclean's offices in the National Press Building across the street from Parliament Buildings, but prefers to be two steps from the House of Commons by setting up shop in the Hot Room.
Now, getting in the Hot Room pool isn't cheap. We had to pay all of $5 to enter. (Come to think of it, I haven't actually paid yet, but I digress …) But 17 of the journalists who work in the Hot Room plus me were ready to pay that steep entrance fee to make a guess at Tuesday's results.
Now by the end of this week, as I looked at some of the last polls we'll see, there are a few things that have changed my thinking about how it might turn out on election day. Here's the key themes:
• In 2004 and 2006, NDP support was literally losing a point a day every day of the last week of the campaign. Not so this time. Nik Nanos had the NDP at 22 per cent in the latest iteration of his rolling poll. On Sunday, Nik had the NDP at 19 per cent. Extra points to the NDP for a little 'mo.
• As part of my job, I get to talk to a lot of pollsters and there seems to be a certain feeling that the Green vote, which some thought might be a little soft and would drift back to one of the mainline parties, could, in fact, be a little firmer. I'm not as bullish as the folks at Harris-Decima, who had the Greens today at 12 per cent, but I think eight per cent of the popular vote is do-able on Tuesday, maybe even nine. Now why is that important? Well, Greens seems to draw from folks who either voted for or considered voting for all three (four in Quebec) mainline parties. But at this point, Greens are really drawing away support disproportionately from the Liberals. So stronger Green results means, in my calculus, fewer Liberals. Kind of ironic, wouldn't you say, given the deal Stéphane Dion and Elizabeth May struck?
• Tory support is crumbling in Quebec. But Ontario may hold some nice surprises — see “Green support” above.
• It's the economy, stupid. GDP growth is exceeding expectations; job numbers today were through the roof. No really, they were — through the friggin' roof. We have a growing budgetary surplus. The IMF says we'll lead the G7 next year in economic growth. Oh, and more thing, our banking system is the soundest in the world. Now, it's true that a lot of the groundwork for all that good stuff was laid years ago by Liberal governments. But it's Harper's town now and he ought to get a little cred for that.
OK. There's some gut instinct stuff, too, when it comes these guesses, but with that pre-amble, here's what I bet all of five bucks on:
Conservatives: 128
Liberals: 84
NDP: 43
Bloc Québecois: 50
Green: 1
Independent: 2
My Green pick, in both cases, incidentally, is Adriane Carr, the party's deputy leader, running in Vancouver Centre. I've heard from the parties that this is a mighty tight four-way race and that someone could win this thing with 27 per cent of the vote. I think it just might be Carr. I don't think it's gonna be Hedy Fry.
As for the two independents — André Arthur is looking to be re-elected in the Québec City-area riding of Portneuf-Jacques Cartier but, as he's seen as a Conservative sympathizer, he might not get in if the Tory vote is crumbling. I'm almost certain, though, that voters in the Nova Scotia riding of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley return Conservative-turned-Independent return Bill Casey.
So now you probably want to know, what did the other journalists in the Hot Room bet on? (Not that they have any unique insight, but still…) Well, I'll let other entrants declare their own picks on their own blogs but I'll give you some summary info.
There's 18 entrants. The average breaks down this way (with their standings at dissolution in brackets):
Conservatives: 120.4 (127)
Liberals: 101.3 (97)
Bloc Québecois: 48.5 (48)
NDP: 35.3 (30)
Independent: 1.3 (4)
Green: 0.7 (0)
Every single one of us — except one — predicts that the Tories will form the government. The one who doesn't put down 81 in the Conservative column and 147 in the Liberal. Now that's got to be a typo so let's call it unanimous from the Hot Room that's a Tory government.
In fact, let's call it unanimous for a Tory minority. No one is picking a Tory majority.
Highs and lows:
Conservative: 147 and 81 (102 if you throw out that typo)
Liberal: 147 (123 if you throw out the typo) and 70.
Bloc: 56 and 37
NDP: 48 and 25
Green: 3 and 0
Independent: 2 and 1

Elections Canada said late last night that 1.46 million Canadians cast their ballots in advance polls, a decrease from the 1.56 million who exercised their franchise early in 2006.

Not sure what to make of that number. Generally speaking, a high turnout favours challengers while a low turnout favours incumbents.

But if that's the case, consider this: in my riding of Carleton-Mississippi Mills, Conservative Gordon O'Connor won by a country mile in 2006 and is widely expected to do so again this year. But this year there were 10,493 ballots cast in advance polls, which is more than all the advance ballots cast in the entire province of Newfoundland or the entire province of PEI. Does a high advance poll number put a charge, then, in his Liberal challenger Justin McKinnon?

The advance polls here were second busiest to the polling stations in the Quebec riding of Louis-Hébert where 11,239 electors have voted. In 2006, Conservative Luc Harvey just clipped BQ incumbent Roger Clavet by 231 votes. What does a high advance turnout mean for Harvey?

Third busiest riding in the country for advance polling was right next door to mine — the riding of Nepean-Carleton with 10,337 votes cast. Conservative Pierre Poilievre got 55 per cent of all votes cast in 2006 and is expected to win again this year.

So the busiest three ridings in the country all have Conservative incumbents? Is that a trend?

Well, the trend goes bust at the fourth busiest riding — it's the Toronto-area riding of Thornhill where Liberal Susan Kadis is trying to fend off Conservative Peter Kent. Even without Kent, a high-profile TV news anchor, the Conservatives thought this was ripe for the picking and, so far, 9,440 electors have already made a choice.

Here's the rest of the top ten busiest ridings:

Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington: 8,717 (Incumbent: Cons Scott Reid)

Trois-Rivières 8,700 (Incumbent: BQ Paule Brunelle)

Laurentides–Labelle 8,592 (Incumbent: BQ Joanne Deschamps)

Simcoe–Grey 8,591 (Incumbent: Cons Helena Guergis)

Vaudreuil-Soulanges 8,512 (Incumbent: BQ Meili Faille)

Beauport–Limoilou 8,400 (Incumbent: Cons Sylvie Boucher)

OK — now we have the beginnings of a trend. First of all — the busiest ridings in the country when it comes to advance polls are, generally speaking, not held by Liberal or NDP incumbents. (In addition to Kadis at number 4, Kingston and the Islands where Liberal Speaker of the House Peter Milliken is running was 14th and Ottawa Centre where NDP MP Paul Dewar was running was 15th.) Among the ten slowest ridings in the country for advance polling, just three are held by Tories and the rest are held by the NDP and Liberals.

Is there anything to that?

Well, here's my best shot: there is some evidence to suggest that the Conservatives are the best party at this point for GOTV — Get Out The Vote — with sophisticated database tracking tools and so on. A key component of a good GOTV effort is to get people to vote for your guy as soon as possible. The more of your supporters you can get to advance polls, the fewer you have to track down on election day.

So looking again at our busiest ridings — I'd say the common denominator would be an active and mobilized Tory vote — whether it's to re-elect a heavily favoured incumbent like O'Connor or to put a challenger — like former senator Michael Fortier in Vaudreuil-Soulanges or Peter Kent in Thornhill — over the top. I'm not so sure about Laurentides-Labelle but I can tell you that the Tories are putting significant effort into the other ridings in our top ten list.

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Nearly 90,000 people (and probably a few automated web-crawling spiders) dropped by this blog at least once in the month of September. To each and every one of you – Thanks! That's a big jump from August's traffic, when the number of unique visits was just under 75,000. (Note: A “unique visitor” is my favourite Web traffic measure, rather than hits or page views. If you came here once or a thousand times in one month, that counts as just one 'unique visit'. It's the best way, it seems to me, to get a sense of that actual number of eyeballs that are lookin' in here.) The low-water mark in terms of traffic was sleepy July — just over 70,000 — while it was busiest all through the spring, peaking at more than 121,000 monthly visitors here in April.

Just a reminder for those who are new visitors:

• I've been around here since 2003 but started out over here.

• No one pays me anything to blog here.

• If you want to find me, by phone, in person, or online, my contact details are always here.

• You can subscribe to all new posts by using your favourite news feed reader.

So what were all those who visited last month looking at? Here are September's most popular posts, ranked by the number of page views. Their original publishing date is in brackets:

1. Tory bloggers howl for heads to roll over puffins (Tue 09 Sep 2008 12:16 PM EDT)
2. Hey – those gol' darn Tories is makin' fun of me! (Tue 09 Sep 2008 06:30 PM EDT)
3. Dueling Web sites: Scandals and leadership (Tue 09 Sep 2008 05:51 AM EDT)
4. Did Harper blame bureaucrats for Ritz leak? (Thu 18 Sep 2008 03:38 PM EDT)
5. Dion angling for a spot in history he likely doesn't want (Fri 26 Sep 2008 06:02 PM EDT)
6. Go head and say it, Prime Minster: You want a majority (Tue 16 Sep 2008 09:08 PM EDT)
7. Mercedes' SmartCar (Thu 20 Jan 2005 01:03 PM EST)
8. Conservatives react to Ritz: Not. (Fri 19 Sep 2008 09:08 AM EDT)
9. 22 Minutes' Geri Hall gets handcuffed for having a crush on Harper! (Fri 12 Sep 2008 01:20 PM EDT)
10. F-35 – Test Flight (Wed 10 Jan 2007 03:07 PM EST)
11. Bloggers 1, MSM 0 (Thu 04 Sep 2008 07:53 PM EDT)
12. This ain't right. Find the idiots who did this … (Mon 01 Sep 2008 09:01 PM EDT)
13. Abortion comes to the campaign (Mon 29 Sep 2008 01:04 PM EDT)
14. A new use for the BlackBerry (Fri 19 Sep 2008 12:42 PM EDT)
15. Puffin poop and NPR: The U.S. takes notice! (Tue 16 Sep 2008 12:52 PM EDT)
16. CEOs, economists say carbon tax is fine; Harper, Layton say it ain't (Thu 11 Sep 2008 09:08 PM EDT)
17. First MP of the 40th Parliament elected! (Sun 14 Sep 2008 08:29 AM EDT)
18. Harper unplugged (Sat 20 Sep 2008 08:54 PM EDT)
19. A reality check on the daycare fight (Tue 09 Sep 2008 10:02 AM EDT)
20. How much does the middle class make? (Mon 05 Dec 2005 07:58 PM EST

Technorati Tags: journalism

The leaders tours for the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Greens are all in Atlantic Canada today.
Stephane Dion began the day in Dieppe, NB, near Moncton, a riding held by Liberal Brian Murphy. He then went to PEI where all four ridings in the province are held by his party.
Harper, on the other hand, is in ridings his party does not hold. He started the day in Yarmouth, NS, where Liberal Robert Thibault is the MP. Right now, I am at his rally in Moncton.
Former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord played on this in his speech introducing Harper:
“It's not a coincidence that after the prime minister won the debates, that he has decided to come to New Brunswick two days in a row and only to visit Liberal ridings. At the same time, we have Stephane Dion fighting for his job as leader of the opposition who was also visiting Liberal ridings. I think that tells you something very important.”

We're in Moncton on the Harper campaign and former premier Bernard Lord just whipped up the crowd of about 450 here with a barnburner of a partisan speech concluding it as every introducer does, along the lines of, “please give a warm New Brunswick welcome to Stephen Harper!”
The crowd leapt up, clapping and cheering.
One problem: PM wasn't ready yet.
After a few minutes of sustained clapping and craned necks, Lord was finally able to apologize for jumping the gun.
We're still waiting ..
One of my Global Television colleagues cracked, “A case of premature adulation.”

A new survey says that more people have seen the Saturday Night Live skits in which Tina Fey does Sarah Palin on the Internet than saw them on TV.
The survey, by Solutions Research Group, says 51 per cent of those surveyed how have seen at least one of the two appearances Fey has made as Palin saw the skit on the Web. That's her second appearance, left.
About one-quarter of those Web views were through YouTube.

Technorati Tags:
sarah palin, tina fey, media consumption habits

Steven Clift is “an online strategist and public speaker” based in Minneapolis (which makes him kinda Canadian, eh?) and is behind a site called DoWire.org — short for Democracies Online Wire — which is a meeting place for resources, info, etc. on what you'd generally call e-democracy.

There's a lot of e-democracy in Canada, of course, and Dowire.org takes notice of that with a special section on the our elections. Check it out — it's a little thin in some areas (how can you not have Garth Turner in your list of “Best Individual Candidate Websites“?) , but relatively fulsome in other areas with some new resources I'm excited to say I had not yet run across. Definitely worth the bookmark.

Technorati Tags: elections, e-democracy

The Ottawa Citizen picks up a piece I put together over the last week in which we wanted to spotlight some of the local races that have a little extra spice in them. We called it Grudge Matches, Trend Setters, or Star Turns. Here's the 20 races the Citizen ran and I've thrown in a few more.

Grudge Matches

1.    Halton (ON) – Garth Turner ran as a Conservative in 2006 and won. He then annoyed the rest of his caucus so much they threw him out. Turner then signed up with the Liberals and will carry their banner this time around. Local Tories were annoyed that head office appointed a candidate – Lisa Raitt – to face off against Turner. But Conservatives will cheer loud and long if they can oust Turner on Oct. 14.
2.    Whitby-Oshawa (ON) – Finance Minister Jim Flaherty should win here but his Liberal opponent is Brent Fullard, who was a key organizer of investors that were furious over Flaherty’s flip-flop on income trusts.
3.    Edmonton-Strathcona – (AB) Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer had a tough fight in 2006 to beat NDP candidate Linda Duncan. Duncan is back for round two in a riding where the NDP holds th provincial seat. Mark everything else in Alberta Tory blue.
4.    Churchill  (MB) Liberal Tina Keeper won this in 2006 partly because the NDP vote was split between NDP candidate Nikki Ashton and Bev Desjarlais, the MP who had been kicked out of the NDP caucus and was running as an independent. Ashton’s back for a rematch and there’s no independnt on the left.
5.    Avalon – Politics could hardly be more personal. Conservative incumbent Fabian Manning was, at the time of his election in 2006, famous for being one of the few island politicians to stand up to Premier Danny Williams and live to tell the tale. Manning, who was part of Williams’ caucus in the provincial legislature refused to tow the party line once and earned Williams wrath. Now Williams, of course, is heading up the Anybody But Conservative campaign in that province and Manning, the only Conservative incumbent in that province, will earn some special attention from Williams.
6.    West Nova –Liberal Robert Thibault beat Tory Greg Kerr by a little more than 500 votes in 2006. Then, this summer, Thibault added insult to injury suggesting Kerr was too old to run against him again. Kerr and the Tory war room hope to make Thibault eat his words.
7.    Vancouver Island North – A grudge match pitting NDP MP Catherine Bell and three-term former MP John Duncan. Bell and Duncan first squared off in 2004 with Duncan prevailing. Bell beat him in 2006 and the two are fighting it out once again.
8.    Skeena-Bulkley Valley – NDP MP Nathan Cullen should probably hold this riding but as his party’s environment critic, he’s been a sharp critic of the Conservatives. The Tories would love to see him lose but it might be wishful thinking
9.    Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley – Bill Casey got turfed from the Tory caucus over the Atlantic Accord. This is the first time his constituents will get to vote on his decision and they’re expected to send him back to Ottawa as an elected independent MP. A grudge match for the voters of this riding who want to give Tory HQ a piece of their mind.
10.    Burlington – It took Conservative Mike Wallace three tries before he knocked off Liberal Paddy Torsney in 2006. Torsney wants a rematch but Wallace hopes that a reputation he earned for solid committee work on the Hill combined with suburban fear of a carbon tax will make Torsney a two-time loser. Keep an eye on Liberal MP Bonnie Brown next door in Oakville. If the Conservatives have an Ontario breakthrough, Brown is one of those who will be vulnerable.
11.    Gatineau – A grudge match. In 2006, the BQ’s Richard Nadeau ousted Liberal incumbent Francoise Boivin. Nadeau is facing Boivin again but this time Boivin is running for Layton’s NDP and she says BQ volunteers are moving over to her side.
12.    Trinity-Spadina – NDP MP Olivia Chow took three kicks at the can to win this riding, which she did in 2006. She narrowly beat former Liberal cabinet minister Tony Ianno. Ianno isn't running again against Chow — but his wife his. Christine Innes is carrying the Liberal torch hoping to steal this downtown Toronto riding back from Chow, the spouse of NDP leader Jack Layton.

Trendspotting

1.    Richmond –  The Tories are gunning for former Liberal MP Raymond Chan. This is one of three ridings the Liberals won in 2006 that the Tories think they can steal. They also hope for Vancouver Quadra and West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky
2.    Nunavut – For the first time, voters in Nunavut get to choose from an all-Inuit slate. Liberal Nancy Karetek-Lindell is retiring and though the Conservatives haven’t won anything in the north since Erik Nielsen held the Yukon back in the 1980s, they think their candidate Leona Aglukkaq, a former health minister in the territorial government, might be their breakthrough. Harper campaigned in Iqaluit with Alukkaq last weekend.
3.    Ottawa West-Nepean – A bellwether riding whose MP always seems to be on the government side of the House. In 2006, voters here picked John Baird who became environment minister. The Liberals are running David Pratty, a former defence minister, against Baird. Pratt got ousted in 2004 next door in Nepean-Carleton by Pierre Poilievre. Keep an eye, as well, on Ottawa-South, the riding held by David McGuinty, the brother of the Ontario premier. He should win but some Conservatives think he is vulnerable.
4.    Oshawa – This is a grudge match pitting the country’s autoworkers against the Conservatives. In the last year, more than 70,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Canada, many in the auto sector that powers Ontario’s economy. Conservative incumbent Colin Carrie faces a stiff challenge from the NDP’s Mike Shields,  a popular CAW leader. Autoworkers are also looking unseating Conservatives in the southwestern Ontario ridings of Essex, Chatham-Kent-Essex, Elgin-Middlesex-London, and Sarnia-Lambton
5.    Parkdale-High Park – A downtown Toronto riding that NDP MP Peggy Nash stole from a Liberal incumbent in 2006. Now the Liberals want it back and failed leadership candidate and convention kingmaker Gerard Kennedy is the candidate. Nash is putting up a tough defence, though, making this race too close to call.
6.    Trois-Riviéres – If Parkdale-High Park highlights the NDP-Liberal battle, Trois-Rivieres is a good proxy for the Conservative-Bloc Quebecois  contest. BQ incumbent Paule Brunelle faces Conservative Claude Duran, who has a high-profile locally. If the Tories can win steal the Trois-Rivieres of the world, the BQ MPs in ridings like Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Richmond-Arthabaska, Drummond, and elsewhere ought to be worri
ed.
7.    Outremont – Can Thomas Mulcair hold the NDP foothold in Quebec? Mulcair won what had been viewed as Liberal stronghold in Montreal in a byelection. General elections, though, are a different kettle of fish. Mulcair benefited from the collapse of the separatist vote in this riding and there is no sign that support has revived.
8.    Saint John – The ghost of former premier Bernard Lord lurks over this riding and one other the Tories hope to steal from the Libs. Here, incumbent Paul Zed faces off against Lord’s former chief of staff. In Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe, Liberal incumbent Brian Murphy is facing one of Lord’s top aides. The Tories wanted Lord himself to run in Moncton but he declined and is one of the co-chairs of the Conservative campaign. The Tories were keen on Moncton-Riverview but they have a new respect for Zed’s ability to survive after he survived an all-out Conservative assault in 2006.
9.    Quebec – The Conservatives enjoy their strongest support in the province around the provincial capital. Christiane Gagnon, though, was the lone BQ member to win in 2006 in the city of Quebec. She faces a tough fight to keep that riding out of Tory hands. 

High profile races

1.    Wascana – Ralph Goodale holds down the only Liberal outpost between Winnipeg and Vancouver’s eastern suburbs. The Conservatives would dearly like to make it Tory Blue right across the Prairies but Goodale is no pushover. Meanwhile, the NDP are gunning for some Conservative-held ridings including Palliser, Regina-Qu-Appelle, and Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar
2.    Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River – The Liberals will take any riding they can get but winning this one might give Stephane Dion a few headaches down the road. His candidate is David Orchard,  who once tried to beat Peter MacKay to lead the Progressive Conservatives. The most northern of Saskatchewan’s ridings is now held by Conservative Rob Clarke who won a squeaker in a byelection. The Liberals won it in the 2006 general election by a hair over the Tories. And in 2004, the Tories won by a nose.
3.    Vaudreuil-Soulanges – Michael Fortier quit the Senate to carry the Tory banner in this west end Montreal against BQ incumbent Melli Faille. This is widely seen as the best chance the Conservatives have in Montreal
4.    Westmount-Ville Marie – The NDP is running a popular radio show host – Anne Lagace Dawson – against Liberal Marc Garneau, the astronaut. A riding that should be about as safe as it gets for Liberals in Quebec but the NDP thinks Jack Layton is connecting with Quebecers.
5.    Papineau – Justin Trudeau fought for and won the right to carry the Liberal banner in a riding that is by no means a safe seat. Bloc Quebecois MP Vivien Barbot beat then Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew for this Montreal seat in 2006. Trudeau will try to win it back for the Libs.
6.    Central Nova – Defence Minister Peter MacKay is the favourite but his challenger is Green Party leader Elizabeth May. The Liberals agreed not to run a candidate here to give May her best shot. May either wins the upset of the evening on Oct. 14 or is 0-for-2 when her name is on the ballot.
7.    Surrey North – No incumbent here with the retirement of NDP MP Penny Priddy. Dona Cadman, widow of former MP Chuck Cadman, is carrying the Tory torch. The Tories hope she gets elected but they won’t let her talk to the national press, hustling her out a back door at a Harper rally this week.