The Governor-General is basically the Queen's stand-in in Canada. The Queen of Canada is the head of state in Canada (analagous to your President) and the Prime Minister is the head of government (analagous to your Speaker of the House, I'd guess). In practice, the Queen (and the Governor General) have no real power and only do things based on the advice of the government. They sign the laws that the government has passed. And they dissolve the parliament when the government asks. Usually. (There's a famous incident -- the King-Byng affair in which the Governor-General did not dissolve parliament when Prime Minister King asked him to. This whole matter relates to the weirdness of minority governments. It was considered a political crisis for the Governor General to not follow the advice of the Prime Minister).
Canada is required to have a new election every five years. Usually, it ends up being every four years because if you time your election right, you end up campaigning in the spring / summer months (rather than the fall / winter months). But if the party in power is pretty sure that they're going to get sacked in the election, they hold on to power as long as possible.
Our last election happened early. The Canadian Alliance had just elected their leader who bragged that they were ready for an election immediately. So the Prime Minister called his bluff and called an election. That Party Leader is no longer in power.
The ability to dissolve the parliament is an interesting power. It's one way in which the government can delegate certain decisions to the public. If the Prime Minister believes that the public is behind him, but the party is too weak-kneed to enact the legislation, the PM can call an election. In Ontario, for example, Premier David Peterson decided to call an election to establish whether or not Ontario supported a constitutional amendment. It backfired on him, and his government was swept out of power.
The Sponsorship Scandal is a recent budget scandal. Basically, a lot of money was diverted to the cause of "Canadian Unity" (convincing Quebec that they really want to stay with Canada) and ended up producing nothing.
The scandal has marred the reputation of the popular Liberals and will be one of the biggest discussions in this election.
The politics of tax-breaks is not terribly popular in most of Canada. Alberta (which is one of our more conservative provinces) has used tax breaks and other conservative policies fairly effectively to end up in a good financial position. In Ontario, Premier Mike Harris ended up being despised by doing much the same thing because the effect of the tax breaks was to gut social programs. Most polls currently suggest that people in Ontario would rather pay more taxes if those taxes went to supporting Health Care (for example). Quebec has much the same problem with Premier Jean Charest (who was following the Harris model).
Re: This is why I am confused by Canadian Politics
Canada is required to have a new election every five years. Usually, it ends up being every four years because if you time your election right, you end up campaigning in the spring / summer months (rather than the fall / winter months). But if the party in power is pretty sure that they're going to get sacked in the election, they hold on to power as long as possible.
Our last election happened early. The Canadian Alliance had just elected their leader who bragged that they were ready for an election immediately. So the Prime Minister called his bluff and called an election. That Party Leader is no longer in power.
The ability to dissolve the parliament is an interesting power. It's one way in which the government can delegate certain decisions to the public. If the Prime Minister believes that the public is behind him, but the party is too weak-kneed to enact the legislation, the PM can call an election. In Ontario, for example, Premier David Peterson decided to call an election to establish whether or not Ontario supported a constitutional amendment. It backfired on him, and his government was swept out of power.
The Sponsorship Scandal is a recent budget scandal. Basically, a lot of money was diverted to the cause of "Canadian Unity" (convincing Quebec that they really want to stay with Canada) and ended up producing nothing.
The scandal has marred the reputation of the popular Liberals and will be one of the biggest discussions in this election.
The politics of tax-breaks is not terribly popular in most of Canada. Alberta (which is one of our more conservative provinces) has used tax breaks and other conservative policies fairly effectively to end up in a good financial position. In Ontario, Premier Mike Harris ended up being despised by doing much the same thing because the effect of the tax breaks was to gut social programs. Most polls currently suggest that people in Ontario would rather pay more taxes if those taxes went to supporting Health Care (for example). Quebec has much the same problem with Premier Jean Charest (who was following the Harris model).