I'd like to see Murray Dobbin's evidence that Harper was expecting the opposition to roll over and play dead by passing his legislation to end federal funding of political parties in 2008.

In my opinion, Harper was trying to provoke the opposition to defeat him in the House, so he could go to the Governor General and ask her to call an election. He was leading in the polls; the Liberals under lame duck Stephane Dion were becoming less popular every day; and the recession was about to get much worse in 2009. Harper saw this as his opportunity to grab a majority and stay in power until after the supposed recovery from the impending economic crisis. He would be able to go to the polls blaming the opposition for forcing an election so soon after the last one, and claim that the defeat of the government in the House was motivated by the opposition's selfish desire to keep feeding at the public trough. 

Harper's mistake was to ignore the possibility of a coalition government taking over after his government was defeated in the House, instead of having an election. When he realized his error, and saw that there was a possibility, however slim, of a coalition taking over, he prorogued Parliament to avoid a confrontation.