Canadians will elect a national government on October 19th.

While the country does not go in for the protracted campaigning of its US neighbor nor directly elect its top executive, it emulates the US in other ways politically.

All partisan politics is dirty business but it seems that Canadians have lowered themselves culturally over several decades to simply copy the Americans at their worst.

After Barack Obama was anointed in 2008 in a populist campaign that appealed to both the old radical socialists and the young left on a platform of “hope and change” the Democrats replaced George W. Bush and the Republicans.

Canadians actually celebrated along with the American left on the joyous occasion of electing the first President from the so-called black minority. Nearly everyone completely overlooked the fact that the man had no clue about an assertive foreign policy nor any understanding of simple economics.

The kind of destruction wrought on America by the policies of a principled socialist who hates the America represented by its Constitution is emerging into full view, if Americans still have the sense of life to look at it.

Canadians are poised to make a similar mistake. There is a loathing in this country for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, fomented in part by the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and a conventional media that has institutionalized superficial news coverage. There is little information for the independent consumer of it. Alternative sources must be searched for to combat mainstream bias, subtle though it often may be.

The primary challengers to Harper and the Conservatives are Thomas Mulcair, New Democratic Party and Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party. Elizabeth May of the Green Party is granted far more attention than is justified.

Mulcair is a socialist. Many of us are growing weary of vilifying the rich and successful in life while simultaneously bleeding them with coercive taxation to pay for needless social programs demanded by lobbyists of every stripe. Mulcair will raise taxes rather than lowering them and this will affect more people than his targets of the richest one percent and the corporate tax rate.

Trudeau is a Trudeau. This is as close as Canadians come to considering dynasties in politics. More importantly, Justin Trudeau is a neophyte in so many ways. He speaks of investing in jobs, manufacturing, public transit and blah, blah, blah. Governments don’t invest. They spend. When they spend too much the tax revenue is not sufficient and deficits result. Trudeau is okay with that and rather than aiming at reducing deficits his naïve economic solution is to run them as long as possible.

Harper is an economist and has successfully been Prime Minister since 2006 with a minority government and then winning a majority in 2008 following a dissolution of the government on a vote of non-confidence. He has focussed on balancing budgets, negotiating freer trade relations and improving national defense. His government has been affected by several political scandals, which Harper has always tried to resolve as expeditiously as possible, distancing himself from the particulars.

The campaign appears to be stripped down to a simplistic assumption. There is a need for change according to the leaders of the three parties not in control. The Conservatives under Stephen Harper disagree.

“Hope and Change”. So simple. So similar. So nothing.