federalelection:presently

"Why do we need to have another election six months after the last one?"

Great question.
The ins and outs are fairly complicated, but it sort of goes like this: (again, feel free to chip in and correct/expand).
After the Sponsorship Scandal went public, the governing Liberal Party were rocked by criticism from both inside the party and outside.
In June's Federal Election, Paul Martin's Liberals were returned to government by Canadians, but this time in the form of a minority government.

"So what exactly is a minority government?"

Canada is broken up into constituencies. You basically vote for someone to represent your constituency in Ottawa in parliament. Commercial Drive went NDP and Libby Davies is our MP.
In the last election, The Liberals went from enjoying an absolute majority of seats (MPs) in parliament to having only the largest plurality.
(172 to 135 seats!)
This meant that in order to pass legislation and get anything done in Canada, Paul Martin was constantly bargaining for support from the other parties.
Kind of a bummer situation to be in considering it used to be so much easier for him.

Eventually, the inevitable happened and Stephen Harper (leader of the main opposition) saw his opportunity and tabled a motion of no confidence in The Liberal government.

More tomorrow.