Khushwant Toor writes from Toronto

STEPHAN Harper is adamant to trigger an election call for Oct. 14, senior officials in the Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Office said August 30, 2008. No firm decision has been made, but it is highly likely that Harper will seek to dissolve his minority government next week, sending the country to the ballot box the day after Thanksgiving.
Earlier, during the week, Prime Minister met with Bloc Québécois leader Mr. Gilles Duceppe, and also had a conversation over the phone with the Liberal Leader Mr. Stephane Dion; both the leaders accused Harper of just being adamant on going to early elections and not letting anyone know what his agenda for the fall session of the Parliament is. The leaders accused Stephen Harper that the real reason for calling an early election is to hide his own scandals for which his government will be made answerable to in the upcoming session of the Parliament; the Prime Minister does not want the House to be in session, by sending them to the polls.
On the other hand Harper has said the workings of the House of Commons, where his party's 127 seats give him a minority, have become "dysfunctional." The Liberals hold 95 seats, the Bloc 48 and the NDP 30. There are four independent MPs and four vacant seats.
Before declaring the elections Harpers is seeking to meet the opposition leaders to decide an agenda for the pools. Bloc Québécois leader Mr. Gilles Duceppe was the first opposition leader to respond to Harper's call for one-on-one meeting. However, both the leaders ended up laying their own agendas on the table and none reaching close to a compromise. Harper has sought meetings with all three opposition leaders to see if they can agree on an agenda for the fall session of Parliament, scheduled to begin Sept. 15.
NDP Leader Jack Layton will meet with Harper in Ottawa on the weekend. Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's office has told Harper he would be available to meet with the prime minister on Sept. 9, a day after three byelections are to be held in Quebec and Ontario. Harper, however, has said he is unwilling to wait until Sept. 9 to meet with Dion and discuss whether Parliament can continue as is.
Following the latest, repercussions among the party leaders, local MP’s have started to prepare themselves for the fall elections. Many of them have signed up leases for their would be election campaign office.
Governor General of Canada Michaelle Jean, cancelled her trip to China so that she could be available to meet with the Prime Minister once he calls for an early elections. Infect, Governor General was asked by the Prime Minster to cancel her trip to China. She was to leave for China on September 5 and return on September 10.
If an election call is made for October the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, along with Thanksgiving and several other religious holidays during October, will pose challenges for the conservatives, and may prompt a backlash from the Jewish community.
The parties are yet to finalize their Poll agendas, however, one of the main issues the Conservatives will be attacking the Liberals in this elections will be the $15.3-billion carbon tax proposed as part of the Liberals' Green Shift environmental plan. Conservatives warn that it will bankrupt the country's treasury if implemented. For the opposition, downward trend in the Canadian Economy will be one of the main elections issue. Private-sector economists have downgraded Canada's 2008 gross domestic product forecast for this year to 1.1% from 1.7%, which is a number not in favour of the Harper government and is being seen as one of the reasons Harper wishes to go for an early election.
Independently conducted public opinion polls show wavering results for the parties if the country is driven to an early election. In the latest two such polls conducted by Nanos Research the Liberals lead the Conservatives by two points scoring 35 to 33 and in another such poll conducted by Harris-Decima, the liberals lead the conservatives by one point scoring 34 to 33 points.  However, both the polls have a margin of +-3.
Below is a list of Parties which will be contesting this fall election.
BQ Bloc Québécois
CON Conservative Party
GRN Green Party
LIB Liberal Party
NDP New Democratic Party
AAE Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party
CAP Canadian Action Party
CHP Christian Heritage Party
COM Communist Party
FPN First Peoples National Party
LBT Libertarian Party
M-L Marxist-Leninist Party
MP Marijuana Party
NRP Neo-Rhino Party
PCP Progressive Canadian Party
WB Western Block Party

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CIVIL RIGHTS
An American dream gone sour

Forty-five years ago , Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech to over 200,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. African-Americans were "still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination" one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, King said. He invoked "the fierce urgency of now" and declared that America must "live out the true meaning of its creed" that "all men are created equal." Forty-five years later, though still incomplete, America has moved gradually towards realizing King's dream.
 One year after King delivered his speech, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which formally outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. In 1966, Massachusetts senator Edward Brooke became the first African-American to be elected to the Senate by popular vote. In 1989, L. Douglas Wilder became the first African-American elected governor of a state. In Denver today, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will become the first African-American to accept the presidential nomination of a major party. Rev. Joseph Lowery, who was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King, says that while Obama's nomination is a significant step for the civil rights movement, it is not the final step. "I think that, while it doesn't mean we've gotten to heaven... we are on our way as the old song goes," Lowery said.
According to American Progress, “In 2004, the National Urban League released it's first Equality Index, which sought to statistically measure the disparities between blacks and whites in areas such as economics, education and civic engagement. The index found that the status of African-Americans had improved since the Civil Rights era, with significant increases in "overall income, home ownership, business development and educational achievement" but that "there are still notable gaps between African Americans and whites." In total, the status of African Americans in 2004 was "73 percent when compared to the conditions of their white counterparts." In the 2007 Equality Index, the status of African-Americans had shown a slight improvement, rising to 73.3 percent.“
In his 1963 speech, King described black Americans as living "on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity." Forty-five years later, the economic disparities between African Americans and white Americans are still stark. In 2007, based on annual median income, black men "earned less than three-quarters of what white men earned" while "black women made 87 percent of what white women made." According to new census numbers, "inflation-adjusted median incomes of black and Hispanic households rose last year for the first time since 1999," but African-Americans still "had the lowest median household income in the country" at $33,916. In 2007, the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 8.3 percent, which is "more than twice the white unemployment rate." In census numbers released earlier this week, African-Americans once again had the highest poverty rate in America 24.5 percent.
In calling for America to heed "the fierce urgency of now," King declared that "now is the time to make real the promises of democracy." Since then, African-Americans have been one of the most active and engaged voting communities in America. According to the 2006 census, blacks had the second highest registration rate at 61 percent and the second highest level of voter turnout at 41 percent. Despite this high level of civic engagement, barriers for democratic involvement by the African American community still exist. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's restrictive voter ID law, ruling that "states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights." Though many Americans have a variety of proofs of identity, studies have shown that black and Latino Americans are far less likely than whites to have government-issued IDs. For instance, in a detailed study in Milwaukee, fewer than half afro Americans had identification.

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