A Primer for the Canadian Election

A funny explanation of  the Canadian election coming up on May 2:

On to the election campaign itself. The big news is that there actually is an election campaign, and the good news is that it's already half-over. Canadians view an election like we do sex: it should be fast and cheap, and leave us feeling slightly dirty afterward.
This vote should meet our expectations. The government fell on March 26, and we'll vote for a new Parliament May 2. That's less time than the U.S. takes between electing a president and swearing him in, much less the 18-month campaign period that Obama just kicked off. Yeah, this country has one-tenth the population. But get real!
Same for costs. On the donation side, no corporate or labor-union contributions allowed. Each citizen can give $1,100 to a political party and $1,100 to a candidate. That's it! Oh, and each party collects $2 for every vote it got in the last election. Expenses are also strictly limited, depending on the number of potential voters the candidate is trying to appeal to. Constituencies (quaintly, we call them ridings) vary a bit in size, but the average limit is less than $100,000. Exceed that, and you might have your victory annulled. Although I'm not sure of that since, being Canadian, nobody ever cheats.
As for feeling dirty, we're still in jockeying-for-position mode. Nobody is desperate enough yet to go for a really low blow. But the English and French-language leaders' debates are now scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, and there might be some fireworks then. Or not.

The explanation of the parties and the issues at stake is humorous and interesting for this poorly-informed neighbor to the south (99.9% of the U.S. population should be considered poorly-informed neighbors to the south, but very few are interested).  I definitely like the idea of short election campaigns without massive special-interest money.