As election nears, close vote predicted

Canada's political leaders began their final campaigns on Saturday, before voters decide on Monday whether to grant Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper a rare fourth consecutive term after a long and hard-fought campaign.

The Liberals are leading the Conservatives by as much as 8 percentage points in polls, sitting as high as 38 percent, very close to what is needed to win a majority in Parliament.

"This is going to be a close election," Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, son of the late former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, told about 1,000 supporters in Halifax, on Canada's east coast.