Two for Canada.

JOHN TURNER, the new-minted Canadian prime minister, lost no time calling an election. With his party ahead in the polls for the first time in two years, he wants a vote before electors conclude he's just another Liberal.

Brian Mulroney's Tories have lost one of the biggest leads on record. In part this reversal derives from the replacement of the discredited left-wing Trudeau with the attractive trimmer, Turner. However, the Liberals' face-lift would not have proved a vote-getter had the Tories not engaged in some ill-conceived cosmetics of their own.

Brian Mulroney snatched the Tory leadership from the inept Joe Clark last year in a coup organized by the party's right wing. Although Mulroney was clearly no Margaret Thatcher, he did promise a more conservative approach after a quarter-century of leftward drift. With the Canadian economy in free fall, unemployment headed for near depression levels, and a fiscal deficit of unimaginable proportions, the nation was ripe for a dose of realism. This, Mulroney gave them for a while, but when his lead in the polls reached the magisterial, he changed course. He promoted Clark loyalists to key parliamentary roles, replacing serious reformers. His earlier criticism of handout programs changed to an apparent born-again commitment to the entire panoply of the welfare state.

The Tory strategy means voters will choose between two parties with indistinguishable platforms led by corporate lawyers who weren't even in Parliament a year ago. Despite the blurring, there is more than a depreciated Canadian dime's worth of difference between the parties: The Liberals are and will be dominated by their Quebec representation, which has given the party its socialist tendency, whereas the Tories are and will be dominated by their Ontario and Western representation, which has given the party its conservative tendency.

The good news from Canada this year is the virtual collapse of the avowedly socialist New Democratic Party (NDP). With its standing in the polls down to 10 per cent, it could be reduced to mere fringe status in the next Parliament. After the 1972 election, the NDP held the balance of power, a situation conducive to the proclivities of the left wing of the Liberal cabinet. The then finance minister had little choice but to acquiesce in policies that ultimately proved disastrous. He left politics soon after. That man was John Turner. This time he has no fear of the NDP. He does have reason to fear the Tories, despite their stumbles, because they just might convince voters they offer the only chance of change.