Ah, I look fondly towards many years of Italian style multi-party parliaments, with elections so frequent that no one puts up signs anymore.. sigh

General statement for times like these: no one knows anything.

In answer to your question: no. In general, the Liberals and Conservatives together have taken more than 70% of the vote (note that, for the 1993, 1997 and 2000 elections, you need to combine the Reform/Canadian Alliance vote with the PC vote to keep this statistic), but both parties went into an unprecedented tailspin starting with the lead-up to the 2004 election.

In 2006, the Conservatives won the election while gaining the lowest level of popular support ever accorded to the most popular political party in an election. The record they beat was set in 2004 by Paul Martin.

However, neither party has yet beaten the lowest level of support ever accorded to a party that has formed the government after an election. That record is still held by Joe Clark in 1979, when he got 35.7% of the vote. The reason why he doesn't hold the record set in 2004 and 2007 is because the most popular party in the 1979 election was the Liberals, which received around 40% of the vote.

Yes - and at the risk of David's ire - it's also about the polling between elections. I recall Mulroney was at about 12% at one point in the early 90s. I wonder how low the Grits had ever polled.

With luck, if they dip below thirty they will give it up as a bad job and go home.