For the second time in its history, the newspaper that sees itself as a
“small “l” liberal newspaper” is endorsing the NDP in Monday’s
election.  Today’s editorial in the Toronto Star calls on voters to “Look to Jack Layton and
the New Democrats” adding, “they may well challenge the Liberals as the
principal national standard-bearer for the roughly two voters in three
who disagree fundamentally with the course charted by the Harper
Conservatives. Progressive voters should give them their support on
Monday” (the Star endorsed the NDP in 1979, the Conservatives only twice.)

That puts the Toronto Star out in, well, left field; it seems virtually every other daily newspaper, plus magazines such as Maclean’s and the Economist is endorsing the Conservatives. The Globe and Mail declared: “If the result (of the campaign) is a confident new
Parliament, it could help propel Canada into a fresh period of
innovation, government reform and global ambition. Stephen Harper and
the Conservatives are best positioned to guide Canada there.”  The National Post, Montreal Gazette, Kitchener-Waterloo Record,
Hamilton Spectator,  the Sun and the Province in Vancouver, Calgary Herald, Winnipeg Free Press, Windsor Star have more or less agreed.

Some newspapers have not weighed in – except to endorse candidates in specific ridings (The Ottawa Citizen) or to simply urge voters…to vote (Halifax Chronicle Herald and Victoria Times Colonist).

Toronto Life observes “nobody’s sure if they matter, but the press keeps making them anyway,”a position  the Star’s Public Editor, Kathy English considered in the last
election, and deciding “editorial endorsements are a vital expression of a
newspaper’s voice of leadership in the community…(and has a) democratic
responsibility to foster public debate on matters of importance to
citizens.”