Canada's Liberal Party will select a new leader in early December (the weekend of the 1st to the 3rd). The Globe and Mail/CTV news commissioned a poll of Liberal Party members (those who will be selecting the new leader)
and found:
Michael Ignatieff has a slender lead among Liberals in the race to become national party leader and could well lose to Bob Rae or Stéphane Dion, both of whom possess greater potential for growth at the leadership convention
The race has evolved into a three-tiered race at this point. Ignatieff (at 19%), Rae (at 17%) and Dion (at 13%) are in the top tier. Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden (both at 9%) are in the second tier (described in the article as "kind of contenders") and then everyone else ("who really should get out of the race because they're going to humiliate themselves").
When polled for their second choice, the results showed that "the race between Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Rae could be almost a dead heat after the first tier of lower candidates drop out after the first ballot." This is significant given the way the voting is conducted during the convention, with the low vote-getters being dropped and their support moving to one of the other candidates.
Ignatieff was described by one commenter (Dump Terry McAuliffe) in a prior diary as a "Canadian version of a DLC Democrat. He has been hawkish on both Iraq and Afghanistan. He only moved back to Canada in 2005 after 25-plus years living in the UK and the US. He was brought in as a star candidate during the last federal election and immediately became a candidate for the Liberal leadership.
Bob Rae is the former NDP premier of Ontario. While Rae has much baggage to overcome in Ontario, he has somewhat rehabilitated his image and is a strong, progressive candiate.
Here is a web Q&A conducted with Stephane Dion at the Globe and Mail's website.
Here is the Toronto Star's page compiling all of the Liberal leadership related articles, including this one on debates conducted last Sunday.