A federal general election has been called for Monday, May 2, 2011. Interested in finding out more about Canadian federal elections? This guide has been created to help you to find information on a variety of topics related to the current and past Canadian federal elections.

General Information

• Canadian Electoral System: Research paper from the library of Parliament which "reviews the nature and operation of the Canadian Electoral System."
• Elections Canada: Elections Canada is an independent, non-partisan agency that reports directly to Parliament and is an official source of information on federal elections, electoral law and policy, election financing, and the electoral districts of Canada.
• Elections: Created and maintained by Andrew Heard, SFU Dept of Political Science, this site provides statistics, graphs, and background information on a variety of topics, including polling data, parties & candidates, riding information, women & elections, electoral reform, past election results and more.

Five Major Political Parties & Leaders (2011)

• Bloc Québécois Gilles Duceppe
• Conservative Party of Canada Stephen Harper
• Green Party of Canada Elizabeth May
• Liberal Party of Canada Michael Ignatieff
• New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) Jack Layton 

Election News & Commentary Sources

• CBC Canada Votes website.
• Canadian Newsstand contains the full text of articles in major Canadian and small market BC newspapers, with a 2-7 day publication lag.
• Elections Canada News Releases and Media Advisories: Includes current news releases from Elections Canada and archival materials.
• PressDisplay: Provides online access to current newspapers from around the world in full-color, full-page format. Includes over 1000 newspapers in over 40 languages from around the world, including more than 110 Canadian newspapers. A rolling backfile of 30 to 60 days is provided for each paper, but older issues are not available.
• rabble.ca Elections: Built on the efforts of progressive journalists, writers, artists and activists across the country. 
• Making It Count: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' federal election blog.
• The Hook: Independent, online magazine created in British Columbia.

Journal Articles & Databases

• America: History and Life: Indexes literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistoric times to the present from approximately 2100 journals published worldwide. Links to fulltext of articles available in the JSTOR collection.
• Canadian Public Policy Collection: This collection brings together monograph publications from a variety of Canadian public policy institutes, research institutes, think tanks, advocacy groups, government agencies and university research centers. The organizations included in this collection represent primary research and opinion in all areas of Canadian public policy.
• CBCA Complete: Direct access to the full text articles indexed from over 475 Canadian periodicals and other sources of current affairs information. In addition, CBCA Complete also includes indexing of about 800 additional active periodicals and a variety of daily news sources.
• Political Science Complete: Contains full text for over 480 journals, and indexing and abstracts for nearly 2,100 titles (including top-ranked scholarly journals).
  

Books

Subjects:

• Elections -- Canada.
• Voting -- Canada.

Authors:

• Harper, Stephen
• Ignatiaff, Michael
• Layton, Jack
• May, Elizabeth

Information for Young Voters

• Elections Canada's Young Voters page: Casting your ballot lets you speak your mind. It lets you be heard. This site shows you how. It’s loaded with information for anyone who wants to know how elections work. You can look up the answers to election basics or go deeper to find information on Canada’s electoral system. So have a look around and remember – next time you have a chance, get involved and make sure your voice is heard!
• itsyourvote.ca: The College Student Alliance (CSA) believes that Canadian youth should be informed about the upcoming election. Only 37.4% of 18 to 24-year-olds voted at the 2008 general election which means over 60% of young Canadians did not participate in selecting this country’s government.
• The Peak: Check out "a student's guide to the 2011 Canadian Election" in SFU's student newspaper.
• The Rick Mercer Report: Link to Rick's rant, VOTE!