(Editor’s note: Starting today, Duncan Cameron will appear regularly as a rabble.ca columnist. His work will focus on federal politics.)

Much is being written about the prospects of a Liberal minority government. But, with the Conservatives and Liberals showing even support outside Quebec, the first-past-the-post might not be who we think.

The Paul Martin team pushed to get Jean Chrétienout the door before his announced departure date of February 2004. He skipped out smiling, leaving his successor to handle auditor-general, Sheila Fraser. Her treatment of the sponsorship programme was a major departure in tone and style from anything an auditor-general (and public servant) had ever displayed. Her indignation ignited furious anti-Liberal sentiment such as has not been seen since the pipeline debate of 1956. The Martin Liberals were caught unprepared, despite months of waiting to take over the prime minister’s office.

Past political calculations went out the window with the sponsorship scandals. The Liberals have lost nearly ten points in national polls. Quebec is especially important. The Bloc are the big beneficiaries from the scandals. A few months ago there was talk of them being extinct. Now, they are seen as champions of a Quebec that is being called corrupt in the rest of Canada. Expect them to win 50-60 seats in the next parliament.

The Liberals look to lose at least 30 seats in Ontario, along with the 20-odd seats in Quebec. A combination of NDP strength, and the successful fusion of the Tories and the Alliance, predicts this outcome.

The Martin people thought Canadians would treat them as a new government. Wrong. The PM claimed he was not an active player around the sponsorship programme. That gambit failed immediately. If he did not know, he was a fool. If he did know, and did nothing, he was incompetent.

The Liberals next step was to push back the election date, and hope the story would go away. This is unlikely. Once Martin gets his picture taken with George W. in Washington at the end of April, the Bloc will solidify their support, and more Liberal support should go to the NDP.

Their big lead in opinion polls having disappeared, the Liberals could lose every seat in the West — okay, maybe not Saint Boniface — over what is widely seen (unjustly) as another Quebec pork barrel scandal. Correcting the false impression put around by Canwest Global is going to be a real challenge for them.

Assume then, that the Bloc wins 50-60 seats, and the NDP 30-40. That leaves 208-218 seats up for grabs. At even strength, the Liberals and Conservatives each will get something over 100 seats in the next election. Neither will want to form a government with support from the Bloc.Combined Liberal and NDP support may or may not total a majority. Indeed, the unknown factor is how the surprising support for the Greens will affect NDP prospects, particularly in B.C., where the Greens are polling 10-15 per cent.

One prospect is for a Liberal-Conservative government, or a Conservative-Liberal government. Hard to have imagined before, it’s now a better bet than a Liberal majority, although a more likely outcome is a hung parliament, with no stable alliance possible among the parties.

What might then prove attractive to Liberals and Conservatives is NDP leader Jack Layton’s proposal for proportional representation — PR. Since a follow-up election under PR would reduce the number of Bloc MPs in a hung parliament, that idea might generate new-found support.

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron

Born in Victoria B.C. in 1944, Duncan now lives in Vancouver. Following graduation from the University of Alberta he joined the Department of Finance (Ottawa) in 1966 and was financial advisor to the...