Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to give the late NDP leader Jack Layton a state funeral can be parsed two ways: a noble gesture or a Machiavellian political manoeuvre to further marginalize his original foe, the leaderless, languishing Liberals.

But no one, least of all Harper himself, could have predicted Canadians' week-long outpouring of emotion. Was it a fleeting historical moment? Or something more profound? If the former, political normalcy will return with the opening of Parliament Sept. 21. If the latter, the state funeral could turn out to be Harper's biggest political mistake yet.

Since the publication of my book Rogue in Power, I have called the attention of my readers to two main points. First, I wanted to underline the significance of a mass vote against the Conservatives, taking into account the particularities of each riding. Second, I invited the members of civil society to imagine today what kind of mobilization we will need after the elections. In essence, even if we imagine that Stephen Harper and his team lose the next elections, which I highly doubt, we will need to do a lot of work to rebuild the Canadian institutions and democratic practices needed for the maintenance of the rule of law.

Stephen Harper can almost taste a majority. More than a decade of work to unite the right and make the new Conservative Party more palatable for Canadians has reached a point where the party has, as of mid-March, polled its highest ratings. With an election on May 2nd, Harper is very close to fulfilling his dream of majority rule.

Unless of course he falls short and the opposition parties form a coalition government.

Harper hates this possibility, naturally. He more than anyone recognizes the viability and inevitability of coalition governments.