Federal seat projection

A Conservative majority continues to slip away from Stephen Harper based on projections by Greg Morrow at DemocraticSpace. These projections are based on post debate polling. However Conservative support is not leaking to the Liberals but rather the NDP. The numbers confirm that voters were impressed by Jack Layton's performance in the Leaders' Debates. In fact all the parties have lost some support to the NDP.

However, yesterday's interview of Michael Ignatieff by Peter Mansbridge will not help his cause.

Stephen Harper insists that the three opposition leaders would scheme to form a loose arrangement that would vote against his budget and seek to take over the government with the agreement of the Governor-General. Ignatieff says there is no such plan, and that he would only consider a deal with other parties if asked by the Governor-General after the Conservatives had failed to gain the confidence of the House.

Except Ignatieff's latest statements seems to contradict earlier remarks about no willingness to get into a coalition. This may have an impact on voters or at least the Conservatives hope so. What troubles voters is giving the Bloc any influence in running the country.

What is interesting is with less than two weeks remaining in the campaign the Liberals are pretty much acknowledging they will not win and seem to be wooing voters to keep the Conservative in a minority position so that the Liberals can take control through a non-confidence vote. That's not really how Parliament is supposed to work but the rules allow it. This could turn out to be a form of political payback after the Conservatives also bent the rules to prorogue Parliament to avoid a non-confidence vote in December, 2009.

	5-Apr	12-Apr	19-Apr
Conservatives	157	152	148
Liberals	69	78	77
NDP	33	34	39
Bloc	49	43	43
Green	0	0	0
Others	0	0	0