Canada is slogging through the second-longest campaign cycle in the country’s history: a whopping 78 days. Canadian Election Day is October 19, and our neighbors to the north are getting into their campaigns now. You think about that while you count how many stories you read or watched this weekend about the U.S. Presidential election, which is about 14 months away.

Joining the Crummy Little Podcast this week to talk about those elections and help make sense of it all is Robin Speer, who boasts more than a decade of high level experience in Canadian politics and public affairs. Robin had a lot to do with helping build the Conservative majority that runs Parliament now.

Early polling paints quite a picture of the current campaign: Canada’s top three parties are running neck-and-neck-and-neck, which creates the possibility of a historically evenly divided Parliament.

We did not record a version of the podcast in French. Sorry, Quebec.

Listen/download it here or subscribe on iTunes.

Extras:

• Robin and I chat about the early polls and the potential seat swings. The information I used came chiefly from the CBC’s Poll Tracker. The National Post has a similar page. Like with American political coverage, it’s probably best to take in information from a few different resources.
• During the course of the discussion, I made a couple of references to Canadian Bacon, Michael Moore’s movie about a cold war between the United States and Canada. It is probably Moore’s best work.
• We reference candidate Wyatt Scott’s unhinged television ad for his independent candidacy for parliament. Savvy viewers might note that the dragon he slays and the giant robot he destroys with his heat vision have logos for the Liberal and Conservative parties, respectively.
• During the baseball portion of the podcast, Robin mentioned Andrew Albers, a pitcher from his hometown who is in the Toronto Blue Jays’ minor league system. Coincidentally, he pitched in my hometown the night before we recorded the podcast.