OTTAWA - Canada will hold a general election on Monday, June 2nd, the governing Liberal Party announced yesterday.
The announcement came as the Prime Minister, Mr Jean Chretien, was holding his last cabinet meeting before the election call. Mr Chretien met the Governor General, Mr Romeo LeBlanc, who formally dissolved parliament.
In a speech released by the Liberal Party before Mr Chretien met the governor general, the Prime Minister set out a campaign strategy based on the boast that awe have restored Canada's fiscal sovereignty and we have got our fiscal house in order.
But he also admitted that "unemployment is too high", hoping to deflect criticism from the opposition parties and from the left wing of his own party that he had failed to carry out his 1993 election pledge to create "jobs, jobs, jobs".
Elected in a landslide victory in October 1993, Mr Chretien took office the following month and need not have called an election until October 1998.
Latest opinion polls give the Liberal Party a commanding 42 to 50 per cent lead, with the second placed Progressive Conservatives trailing at 18-19 per cent.