Mere days ago, this election campaign promised only the status quo.
As Canadians emerge from their Easter break, they are now looking at a May 2 election that holds the potential to fundamentally redraw the country’s political landscape.
Whether this looming realignment is real or an April mirage may hinge on five factors.
• The continued decline of the Bloc Québécois: Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe must spend the final week trying to arrest a slide in his own backyard, even calling in former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau to try to turn things around.
If the slide continues, it is not only good news for federalists, but some seat projections show the post-election showdown, whatever form it takes, could happen with the BQ on the sidelines.
• NDP economic credibility: This has always been the party’s Achilles heel and it not clear whether its platform can withstand a whole week of intense scrutiny.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says New Democrat Leader Jack Layton will come up with “fantasy money” to magically establish a cap-and-trade system in Canada within the next 10 months.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says the NDP platform contains $20 billion worth of carbon taxes buried in its pages and claims Layton would increase taxes by $2,500 for a family of four.
If voters look past the image of Happy Jack, study his economic plan and shrug, that will be as historic for the party as a breakthrough in Quebec.
• Vote-splitting on the left: Polls have the NDP and Liberals in a virtual dead heat in the race for second, but — beyond the obvious historic nature of the NDP becoming the official Opposition — such a result will spark the larger question of uniting the left.
If Harper wins a majority because the left splits, it will be reminiscent of Liberal Jean Chrétien’s 1997 majority, won with 38 per cent of the popular vote because of the Reform-Progressive Conservative split.
The dynamics of any talks will be radically altered if Layton and his New Democrats appear to be in the ascendancy while Ignatieff and the Liberals are in decline.
Two weekend events may be symbolic of what is happening. Layton drew a record crowd at a Montreal rally Saturday, the same day Ignatieff was booed at a junior hockey game in Mississauga.
Sometimes political momentum builds inexorably, oblivious to any external factors.
• Strategic voting: Although there is always much talk about it during Canadian elections, there is precious little evidence that it is practised extensively — or that it even works.
But it may never have been so tempting as now.
The NDP surge complicates matters because the party ran first or second in more than 100 ridings in 2008, and it may now be in a position to eat into enough Bloc support in Quebec and Liberal support in Ontario to allow the Harper Conservatives to pick up seats and ride to a majority.
But a strategic swing to the New Democrats could also badly wound the Conservatives.
Catch 22, an organization that is urging strategic voting to block a Harper majority, has compiled a list of more than 50 ridings in which it recommends candidates to block Conservatives, but it has not changed the list on its website in the wake of the changed national numbers.
• The ground game: The Conservatives have the resources and recent history suggests they are head and shoulders above the other parties in getting their vote out next Monday.
The wild card will be the NDP organization in Quebec. Without the muscle to get his new-found supporters to the polls, Layton’s numbers will not be matched by votes.
The party is talking a good game, but will have to prove it can deliver in a province where three elections ago, it did not even register with the electorate.
Tim Harper is a syndicated columnist for The Toronto Star.