One more thought on the Canadian election, and as a fan of the cross-border aspect I am going to bring the Americans into it and our American in Toronto has some thoughts. She points to the effects of the interference by Michael Moore and that other experienced election spoiler, Ralph Nader.

Coming on the heels of his movie release Moore probably had some impact as I suggested earlier. Someone floated the likely outrage that would occur if Rush Limbaugh would dispense some electoral advice to Canadians, but even wheeling in some moderate American conservatives (Schwarzenegger, Giuliani, McCain to name a few) to prop up Harper would have caused a nationwide outrage, with the CBC no doubt stirring up the flames of fury. Whatever comes out the US must be bad for Canadians is the dogma, but here’s what struck me. Is the leftist sentiment in this country not to a large extent an American import product? How many disgruntled, socialist, environmentalist, pacifist or otherwise disenchanted Americans over the years have made Canada their home, adopted citizenship and are now practicing a political agenda for which there was little appetite back home? I don’t have to look very far to identify a significant number of them and there are actually some figures for this phenomenon:

During the Vietnam War, U.S. emigration to Canada surged as thousands of young men, often accompanied by wives or girlfriends, moved to avoid the draft. But every year since 1977, more Canadians have emigrated to the United States than vice versa - the 2001 figures were 5,894 Americans moving north, 30,203 Canadians moving south.

So for every six potential Conservative voters Canada loses it gets one Liberal back. That must have had an impact last night.