Canada's Liberals sweep to power

Canada's Liberals won a landslide general election victory Monday, with young leader Justin Trudeau ending a decade of Conservative rule with pledges to raise taxes on the rich in a struggling economy.

For many Canadians the vote was a referendum on outgoing premier Stephen Harper's management style, criticized as autocratic, and on who was better placed to put a sputtering economy back on track.

Besides raising taxes on the richest Canadians, Trudeau, the youthful and good-looking son of the late and beloved ex-premier Pierre Trudeau, has said he will lower them for the middle class.

Trudeau has also pledged to take in thousands of refugees from Syria and battle climate change.

The 43-year-old -- who ran a combative campaign and offered up what he called a "new vision" for the nation -- would be able to form a majority government with 184 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons, according to still incomplete figures from Elections Canada.

Turnout was 68 percent, compared to 61 percent in the last election four years ago.

Public opinion had swung wildly during the hard-fought campaign, which at 11 weeks was one of the longest in Canada's history. The Liberals came from behind late in the campaign, with Trudeau promising "not just a change in government, but a better government."