Mr Harper's election campaigns always begin on the day after the last one. Those who were paying attention knew what we were getting back in 2006, when he issued a diktat to the Public Service to cease all references to the Government of Canada, which would henceforth be known as the Harper Government (capital letters included).

I live in the "safe" Liberal riding of Ottawa-Vanier, where the politics revolve around who speaks French, where French is spoken, where French should be spoken and isn't, and not much else. No contender to the throne of our local Member of Parliament, Mauril Bélanger, has yet managed to steer the conversation to issues of true national importance; Mr Bélanger always somehow manages to remind the voters that he -- all by himself -- prevented the closure of the local hospital, where the language of operations is French, when the bean-counters wanted to consolidate Ottawa's health-care services in three large English-majority bilingual institutions. The debate then seems to stop, and the voters cast their ballots for the familiar Liberal logo.

Consequently, the New Democrats and the Conservatives don't bother running candidates of any stature in Ottawa-Vanier, and those who care little about language politics (or are sick to death of language politics) have nobody to vote for.

And for the next two and a half months, I have to read the foreign newspapers if I wish to remain reasonably sane.