On Tuesday, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin dissolved the House of Commons and set new parliamentary elections for Jan. 23. The move came after a "no confidence" vote on his minority government, stemming from a scandal in which the Liberal Party is accused of paying millions of dollars to Quebec advertising agencies for little or no work.

It's the first time a government has toppled since 1979, but it's unlikely to have a huge impact either domestically or on Canada's somewhat frosty relationship with the United States.

"It's fair to say there isn't a great deal of enthusiasm (for an election) or that there will be a dramatic change," says Jonathan Malloy, a political scientist at Carleton University. "All the polls suggest the new Parliament is going to be a lot like the old one."

The Liberals, in power since 1993, are expected to again win the largest number of seats, though not enough to control Commons. Conservatives will claim the Liberals can't be trusted with public funds after the so-called "sponsorship scandal" involving efforts to head off a separatist move by the French-speaking province of Quebec.

The Liberals were "trying to buy off Quebec by funneling money in there to sponsor Formula One race cars and plastering the Canadian flag everywhere to mute the separatist sentiment," says Chris Dornan, director of Carleton's School of Journalism and Communications.

"That played very badly in Quebec, which found it condescending and patronizing, but even worse, it turned out the money was all being funnelled off by advertising firms with ties to the Liberal Party."

The scandal erupted before Martin became prime minister, and he has not been implicated. Although many Canadians have tired of the Liberals' long grip on power, the 67-year-old shipping magnate remains the most popular choice for prime minister.

President Bush has more cordial relations with Martin than with former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, whose press aide once called the U.S. president a "moron." But the White House has been unhappy with a number of Canadian social policy positions, including recognition of same-sex marriages and the ongoing push to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

U.S.-Canadian relations also remain strained over the Iraq war. Canadians, who have supported the broader war on terror with troops and equipment, considered it a stunning lack of gratitude when former U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci chided them in 2003 for not joining the U.S.-led coalition that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Cellucci was replaced this year by David Wilkins, a former South Carolina legislator and Republican fundraiser who reportedly had been to Canada only once before his appointment. Canadians find him less bullying than his predecessor, though his Southern drawl occasionally perplexes them - a story he told about a "peanut bowl" had reporters stumped until they realized he was actually saying "peanut boil."

The biggest source of friction between the two countries eased last week when the United States agreed to reduce hefty tariffs on imported Canadian softwood lumber. In a case that had gone to the World Trade Organization for arbitration, the Bush administration charged that the imported lumber was heavily subsidized by the Canadian government and posed unfair competition to the U.S. lumber industry.

"Given the fact that Iraq is water under the bridge and the lumber issue is pretty much off the table now, I doubt that Canada-U.S relations are going to loom large as an election issue," Dornan says.

That is in contrast to the 2003 election when Conservative leader Stephen Harper accused the Liberal Party of needlessly antagonizing the United States, Canada's biggest trading partner.

No Canadian politician, though, wants to be seen as too close to Bush, who ranks lower than any other U.S. president in Canadian polls. That could play into the hands of the New Democrats, which more than any other Canadian party hammers on the theme that the United States is a threat to Canadian sovereignty.

"The Bush administration would be the antithesis of everything the NDP stands for," says Dornan. "They are a left-leaning party and so they are wary of living so close to the U.S., whose policies often bleed across the border and steamroll Canada."

The New Democrats expect to do well in the Jan. 23 election with their pitch that the Liberals have been in power too long and that the Conservatives are too far out of the mainstream.

But the Conservatives also hope to improve their showing, now that polls suggest they have started to shed their image as a "scary" party with a "secret agenda." If they take control of Commons, they likely would push to scrap the highly unpopular gun registry and revamp Canada's vaunted national health care system. Though the quality of care is high, patients often face long waits for services.

A wild card in the election will be how large the sponsorship scandal looms in voters' minds. Most of the details came out months ago, and until Monday's no-confidence vote it was no longer front-page news.

By Canadian standards, the campaign will be an unusually long one - 56 days. However, candidates will take a break between Christmas and New Year's.

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