Your tool kit for when Thanksgiving dinner turns to election talk

Somewhere between the Thanksgiving turkey and the pumpkin pie this holiday weekend, the dinner talk might turn to politics, and the upcoming Canadian election.

• LIVE BLOG: Follow the latest on the campaign trail
• Find your riding in our interactive map
• Promise tracker: Compare the platforms of each party

If you haven't been following the campaign, aren't up on the latest controversies, or don't even know the names of the federal party leaders, don't sweat it. We've got your back.

Read on for an election cheat sheet that will help you sound informed.

Find out where you stand

First step: If you haven't already, take our Vote Compass survey. It's an election tool designed by political scientists to suss out your own views on the major issues and compare them with the major parties' platforms. More than a million responses have poured in since the Vote Compass was launched Aug. 30.

It prompts you to answer questions on everything from health care to foreign policy, and renders a real-time assessment of how your positions on the issues compare with the platforms of the Conservatives, NDP, Liberals and Greens. In Quebec ridings, you'll also see how your views stack up with those of the Bloc Québécois.

Some of the results so far have been surprising. Among respondents self-identifying as Conservative Party supporters, a majority, albeit a tiny one, said wealthier people should pay more taxes than they do now, while a sizeable majority said Canada should either legalize or decriminalize recreational marijuana use.

Meanwhile, among self-declared NDP supporters, more believed either Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau or Conservative Leader Stephen Harper won the Sept. 28 leaders' debate on foreign policy than their own party's leader, Tom Mulcair.

• Launch Vote Compass
• All about Vote Compass

Track the polls

Wondering what the polls are saying? All three major federal parties have been in the lead at some point in the two-month-old campaign. It's still a tight race and potentially anyone's to win. For comprehensive details on all the polls and analysis on what they mean, check out our Poll Tracker.  

• Éric Grenier's latest analysis: Portrait of tight race clearing up as polls move into agreement

Pledge to vote

While you're brushing up on the hot-button election issues and learning what this campaign is all about, consider publicly committing to casting a ballot on Oct. 19. CBC has teamed up with Google to create Pledge To Vote, an online mapping tool and election engagement project. It allows Canadians to pledge to cast a ballot in the election and to challenge their social networks to do the same.

• Take the #PledgeToVote challenge

Sound savvy about the issues  

In the longest Canadian federal election campaign in 143 years, an equally lengthy list of issues have been raised, sparred over and potentially now forgotten. Remember the Conservative candidate caught on hidden camera peeing into a cup? Or when an NDP candidate got stomped on by Tory and Liberal rivals for suggesting — as scientists, the international media and even former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney have all done — that some of Canada's oilsands may have to remain in the ground if the country is to meet its emissions targets?

• Review Peter Mansbridge's interviews with the four party leaders
• Voters of Canada: The National talks to people across the country about what's on their mind
• MAP | ‎Tracking the federal leaders
• Read the full platforms for the four national parties

If not, here's a quick primer on five of the biggest topics to surface during the campaign:

1. Senator Mike Duffy's trial

When Harper kicked off the election campaign in early August, he knew there was an ominous date looming on the calendar: the resumption of Harper-selected Senator Mike Duffy's fraud and bribery trial. And indeed, as the court proceedings resumed in Ottawa, questions about the integrity of the Prime Minister's Office began to fly. Harper has maintained all along that neither he nor his current chief of staff, Ray Novak, was ever told that Duffy was repaying $90,000 in allegedly improper expenses with money from the prime minister's then chief of staff, Nigel Wright. But emails and testimony presented at the trial raised questions about that narrative.

Testimony from Wright and former PMO legal adviser Benjamin Perrin at the trial handed fuel to the NDP and Liberal leaders. "Mr. Harper would have us believe that these were rogue elements within his office who did this without letting him know anything about what was going, but the thing is, if they were out of control and not reliable people … how come he's kept them all in his office?" Mulcair said. "Mr. Harper has said one thing, and quite the opposite is coming out now at the trial."

2. The economy: in recession?

A week after the Duffy trial went on pause for three months, there was more bad potential news for the Conservatives. Statistics Canada's latest quarterly economic data showed the country's GDP shrank for two consecutive quarters — which meets the technical definition of an economy in recession. But the data weren't all bad: The economy actually grew in June, and a couple of weeks later, the Finance Department released figures showing the government posted a nearly $2-billion surplus for fiscal 2014-2015, pretty much right on budget.

Harper said that while lower oil and commodity prices had been dragging down some sectors, the overall picture was rosy, so that there would be no need for the government to run deficits to stimulate the economy — as it did for six years starting in 2008-09. "You actually see growth in over 80 per cent of the economy…. The Canadian economy as a whole is now growing, according to the June figures," he told reporters.

Trudeau used the recessionary news to buttress his party's fiscal plan, which calls for three years of modest deficit spending on infrastructure to stimulate the economy. Mulcair's NDP take a different approach, arguing their platform costing, which is focused on offering a balanced budget, is more responsible.

• SPIN CYCLE | When should deficits stop?

On Monday, Conservatives celebrated the announcement of an agreement in principle on the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a trade deal worth potentially billions to the Canadian economy. Trudeau says his party is pro-trade but wants to see the details. Mulcair said the NDP won't be bound by this agreement if they don't like what they learn.  Trade Minister Ed Fast says the text is coming soon, while in the U.S. it's unclear whether Obama's legacy project will even pass.

3. Refugees

The Mideast refugee crisis landed squarely on the election agenda when images circulated around the world of a Syrian toddler who drowned with his brother and mother as they were trying to get to Europe from Turkey. Claims quickly emerged that relatives had been trying to get the family to Canada but had been stymied by the federal government. Even though the truth was much more complicated, it was enough to stir up the electoral war rooms. The NDP and Liberals pledged to accept more refugees more quickly than the Conservatives.

Harper said the country would take in thousands, but emphasized his party would take more time to screen potential refugees, claiming there could be security risks. On Thursday, the issue hit the headlines again amid reports that the Prime Minister's Office and Harper himself intervened to stop Canadian immigration officials from processing Syrian refugee cases in the spring.

• Syrian refugee crisis makes unexpected return as campaign issue
• ANALYSIS | On refugees, PM must heed more than public opinion

4. Niqabs

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Another hot-button issue that swooped in unscheduled is the right of women to wear a niqab — a face covering favoured by some devout Muslims — while taking the oath at a Canadian citizenship ceremony. In mid-September, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled against the government, striking down its ban on face-coverings during the ceremonies. The government immediately said it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

Conservative candidate Jason Kenney, who is often his party's point person with immigrant groups in Canada, said allowing the niqab while swearing citizenships oaths would be "legitimizing a medieval tribal custom that treats women as property rather than people." Prominent Canadians fired back. In an interview, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi described that type of politics as "disgusting" and "unbelievably dangerous stuff." Former Newfoundland premier Danny Williams said some of the Conservatives' tactics around the niqab issue are borderline racist.

Perhaps the deepest ramifications of the niqab debate have been at the polls, where the NDP has lost ground in Quebec, a province where a large majority favour keeping the niqab ban. Mulcair and Trudeau both have said that while the niqab makes them uncomfortable, it is a woman's right to decide whether to wear it.

• Neil Macdonald: The barbaric practice of election pronouncements
• Charter of Rights and niqab collide in views on 'Canadian values'

5. Social media gaffes

In a sign, perhaps, of campaigns to come as ever more people take to social media, 10 candidates for the various major parties have resigned during the campaign over posts — sometimes from the deep past — to Twitter or Facebook. There was the Liberal candidate from Victoria who posted jokes to Facebook about Muslims, Jews and "brown guys," the NDP candidate from Nova Scotia who resigned over Facebook posts about Israel, and the Tory candidate dropped over embarrassing YouTube vidoes. And so on.

It could make for very bland political campaigns in years to come. Note to yourself: If you plan to run for prime minister in 20 years, start scrubbing your Twitter and Facebook feeds today.

• List of candidates, campaign workers making headlines for all the wrong reasons
• ANALYSIS | Social media scandals point to a bland political future

How and when to vote 

Advance polls open today (Friday) and run through the Thanksgiving long weekend. Here are all the options to cast a ballot:

At advance polls: Friday, Oct. 9; Saturday, Oct. 10; Sunday, Oct. 11; and Monday, Oct. 12, at your advance polling location.

At Elections Canada offices: By special ballot until Tuesday, Oct. 13, at more than 400 locations across Canada

By mail: Until Tuesday, Oct. 13, you can apply to vote by mail.

Then on election day, Oct. 19: At your polling station with appropriate identification. If you are registered, you should have received a voter information card in the mail telling you where to vote. You should have received it by Oct. 1. You can also use the online Voter Information Service to find out where to vote.

No matter how you vote, Elections Canada requires proper identification, aside from your voter information card, including one piece that shows your current address.

Errors on the voters list? Problems at a polling station? CBC News wants to hear from you. Use the hashtag #PollWatch to share your experiences on Twitter.