According to Prime Minister Paul Martin, the Canadian government is willing to smooth the way toward a national election in Iraq by helping to train officials there as well as monitor the voting process.

In an interview on CNN on Sunday Martin said, “This is an area in which Canada has a great deal of expertise … and we’re prepared to offer it.”

To date there has been no official request for Canadian help in the election that U.S. authorities in the occupied country want to hold at the end of January.

But Martin said Ottawa has “indicated that if we’re asked we will participate. And we can move quickly once we’re asked. We’ve done this before.”

The prime minister drew the line however, at the idea of sending military aid for the war effort. He told CNN that Canadian troops are stretched too thin elsewhere in the world, and they won’t be helping to relieve U.S. and British soldiers in Iraq.

The interview follows a visit by George W. Bush to Ottawa and Halifax last week in which the U.S. president defended his policy in Iraq and compared present efforts to combat international terrorism to the crusade against fascism in the Second World War.

Martin has consistently put a different spin than Bush on the global anti-terror campaign, emphasizing the need for democratic elections and peaceful nation building rather than military action.