Here in Canada, most voters hug the centre line, preferring red (aka “progressive”) Conservatives or fiscally prudent Liberals. About 25% of us say we are left of centre, 20% right, and the rest are proud centrists.

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As this 42nd general election enters its final days, the incumbent Conservatives are on their feet, but staggering. If they manage an almost unprecedented fourth consecutive win, it will be because many young Canadians that want to be rid of them didn’t show up on election day.

This is not, and has never been, a particularly popular government.

Stephen Harper is not much of a “front of the house” man. He likes being in charge, but barely tolerates the things you have to do to win the job. He’s enjoyed the good fortune of a divided left, weak competitors and a perpetually unsettled economy. On the scorecard, he looks like a political superstar. On the hustings, though, he’s a plodder.

Harper’s pitch in 2015 is halfhearted, and only half-working. To paraphrase: “You may not like me, but the other fellows are worse. I may not have big plans for the country, but I’ll cut your taxes. There are many things to be afraid of, from the global economy to your Muslim neighbour, and only I will protect you against these threats.”

It is a narrow vision aimed at cajoling one more trip to the ballot box from a narrow (37%–40%) proportion of voters. His strategists have always made clear that they are not interested in mass appeal or accommodation, preferring a smaller and more highly motivated target group.

Along the way, Harper has alienated progressive Conservatives and driven other progressive voters to levels of outrage rarely seen. Three out of four voters want change, and one in two crave it badly.

Canada’s usual third party, the socialist-oriented New Democrats, had an unprecedented opportunity to win this election, and have wasted it. Finishing second in the last election with a popular leader named Jack Layton, they’ve served as official opposition for four years. The current leader Thomas Mulcair was masterful and full of brimstone in the House of Commons but has turned out to be a disappointing campaigner. His style suggests a cranky uncle more than a firebrand for the oppressed. Mulcair saddled himself with a platform that is heavy on policy trinkets (think restoring home delivery of snail mail), and is more fiscally prudent than political prudence would recommend.

In a country with a balanced budget, and a low debt-to-GDP ratio, Mulcair chose to promise balanced budgets as far as the eye could see, in a bid to woo new supporters from the centre of the spectrum. This backfired, badly, when the centrist Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, promised instead to goose the economy with a few years of modest deficit spending on infrastructure, a position more consonant with mainstream public opinion on the left and in the centre.

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The NDP under Mulcair has also been cold to new pipelines, hostile to the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, and wants to hike corporate taxes. For the centrist voters he coveted only months ago, his plan for growing the economy is now a question mark.

The Liberal party, victor of many federal elections past, had been humbled badly in the last election. For many partisans, the choice of young, relatively inexperienced Trudeau to lead the party felt risky – but no other choice felt less risky.

In his earliest months as Liberal leader, Trudeau’s popularity spiked upwards. It was more an indication that people were open to him, rather than an endorsement of his ideas, or a movement to firmly align with the Liberal brand. But within a few months, his opponents began working his gaffes and weaknesses, and doubled Trudeau’s negatives. He entered the campaign with his back against the wall, third in the polls, and with plenty of public scepticism about whether he was up to the job.

With less than a week to go, Trudeau has a pretty good chance of winning this election. He built a platform better tuned to mainstream voters. He outflanked his left-side opponents, promising to hike taxes on millionaires and deliver more money to the middle class and poorer families.

His opponents expected to embarrass him in TV debates, only to have him thrive and improve with each outing. His advertising campaign was clever and at times unconventional, with Trudeau acknowledging “they say I’m not ready” and then turning the argument around on his critics.

But if Trudeau wins this election, and it is far from certain that he will, his victory will have less to do with platform, tactics, or performance. In recent weeks, it’s been clear that the country is taking a long hard look at who we really are. It’s more about values, and less about the economy, than we anticipated.

Prime Minister Harper has been nurturing and trying to harvest “fear of the other” sentiment. His reaction to the plight of Syrian refugees has been more about reminding people that some might be terrorists than responding to a collective desire shared by most Canadians to do more. He has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent Muslim women from wearing a niqab as they take the oath of citizenship (even though they prove their identity beforehand to a court official, and despite the fact that there has been a minuscule number of cases where this has ever actually happened). More recently, he has mused that perhaps civil servants should not be allowed to wear a niqab, never mind that no one seems able to cite instances of this happening. Finally, he had two of his ministers, in mid-campaign, announce that they were launching a new toll-free tip line for people to call if their neighbours were engaging in “barbaric cultural practices”. Of course, calling the police was always, and remains, an option.

To his credit, Trudeau has taken up the fight on the other side of these questions with relish. He’s reminded Canadians that they can choose a government that shares their compassion for the distressed, their desire to bridge, not widen differences, and will promote the tolerance that has been a trademark of this remarkably multicultural society.

Along the way, Trudeau has preached civility, and largely practised what he preached. This too has allowed him to stand out. Harper seems to take pride in refusing the most common of courtesies. Perverse in a country filled with people who joke about how polite we are.

If the Liberals win next Monday, it will be for many reasons. But if they win big, it will be because when values became the question, their answer struck a chord.