The party leaders would have you believe there are dueling platforms at play as the longest campaign in any living Canadian's memory comes to a close.

They are wrong.

It's not a black-or-red fiscal clash between running a balanced budget or a temporary deficit.

It's not about the Trans Pacific Partnership as a future economic lifeline to foreign markets or a secret job-killer at home.

It's not about welcoming 10,000 Syrian refugees over several years verses 25,000 right away.

And it's sure not a veiled freedom of fashion argument or that a few women wearing a niqab throws a shroud over the Canadian identity.

All of those elements backdrop the campaign, but they're not the ballot box issue.

This, after all, is just a technical election.

In reality, it's a referendum.

The ballot box question is simply 'Stephen Harper: Stay or go?'

That's how it should be.

While the Conservative leader is now trying to divert the focus from his character, he can't shrug off a ten-year effort to turn the Conservative party into a one-man Harper band.

He has formed the nucleus of all the messaging. He writes the mandate letters to cabinet. He is front and centre in all MP talking points. And he's the focus of an in-house television channel documenting his daily activities.

In fact, his greatest feat has been to consolidate all power, not just most of it, into a Harper domain filled with sycophantic staff who obey without question or comment. By the way, my betting is that the next prime minister will follow suit.

So, here's your choice Canada.

You have a prime minister who handled the seven-year-old economic crisis well; a prime minister whose foreign policy positions are crystal clear; a prime minister who aims to create the smallest possible government on the least amount of tax revenue.

If that sounds good, Harper is your man.

But if you support new economic directions, wider world-stage attitudes and less-polarizing visionary priorities, you have to vote against Harper by gambling on Justin Trudeau or Tom Mulcair.

It's a big question with long-term consequences.

The voter verdict in the great Harperendum of 2015 is less than 80 hours away.

That's the Last Word.