Prime Minister Paul Martin launched an election campaign on Tuesday with a slim lead in the polls after his minority government was toppled in Parliament on Monday night over a corruption scandal.
Martin informed Governor-General Michaelle Jean, representative of head of state Queen Elizabeth, that his Liberal government had lost the confidence of Parliament and emerged from her official residence to announce the election would be on January 23.
It was the fifth time in Canadian history that a minority government had been toppled by the opposition, in this case one emboldened by official findings that kickbacks had been used illegally to finance Liberal election campaigns.
Martin accused the opposition of cynicism and said it brought down the government for no good reason.
"A minority Parliament means the opposition can force an election whenever it chooses. In this case, I believe ambition has overwhelmed common sense," he told reporters in the rain outside Rideau Hall, the governor-general's residence.
The Liberals, who have governed a majority of the time since Canada was founded in 1867, will be seeking their fifth straight term since the Conservatives went down to defeat in 1993.
Martin's task is to deflect attention from the kickbacks scandal and judicial findings of a Liberal "culture of entitlement".
All three opposition parties have said they will focus on clean government in their campaigns, but they also must roll out ideas to persuade the public they are not just anything-but-Liberals.
The Conservatives, the only party besides the Liberals with a hope of forming a government, are pressing for deep tax cuts, tougher penalties for violent crime, and a less combative relationship with the United States.
The other two opposition parties, the separatist Bloc Quebecois and the left-leaning New Democratic Party, look set to gain enough seats to make it unlikely that either the Liberals or Conservatives will get a majority. Polls give the Liberals a lead of five to six percentage points over the Conservatives.
But the Liberals are only at 35 to 36 percent support, shy of the 40 percent that is seen as a bare minimum to get a majority.
A Strategic Counsel poll in Tuesday's Globe and Mail newspaper put the Liberals at 35 percent, the Conservatives at 29 percent and the NDP at 17 percent.