Thank you Al. I'll start by repeating my predictions from the start of the "summer", way back when in May:

CPC 158 (NL-2, NS+1, NB+1, QC+26, ON+6, MB+2)
Lib 92 (NL+2, NS-1, NB-1, QC-5, ON-4, MB-2)
NDP 27 (ON-2)
Bloc 31 (QC-20)
Independent 0 (QC-1)

There hasn't been a lot to shake up the scene in the last 3-4 months. Harper's still a sourpuss, Dion hasn't been off to the Wizard to get Charisma, and the others are the others. The potential spoilers are Afghanistan and the Quebec voter.

Jack Layton will not see another election, especially as leader. If Harper wins or significantly increases his majority, Dion's cooked. May will hang in there. If the CPC loses, Harper is out as leader. If it's a large loss, he's out of federal politics.

My prediction:

CPC: 155
Liberals: 85
NDP: 38
BQ: 29
Independent: 1

Which leaders will go? All except Harper, who begins to have his opposition leader list look like Chretien's.

<i>Chretien: “Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On behalf of all the members of parliament I would like to welcome the new Leader of the Opposition. Perhaps in terms of security a seat belt should be put on his seat because it is called the ejection seat. I am delighted to be facing my eighth opposition leader.”</i>

My vote? Conservative. (Not news to Alan.)

Unbelievably, I see things as worse now in terms of confusion than before. Here was me at May:

CPC - 110
Lib - 115
NDP - 37
Bloc - 45
Green - 1

I see Harper losing in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, gaining in Quebec but he the main thing is he is going to have to get past being labeled the person who reduced government meat inspections, including at the plant which caused deaths. Ontario has a long memory of Walkerton and this could eat drastically into his 40 seats. So now I see:

CPC - 120
Lib - 125
NDP - 37
Bloc - 25
Green - 1

Almost the worst outcome imaginable except the Tory-separatist alliance would not defeat the Grit-NDP one.

I thought I'd predicted over here in May that the CPC would get 152 seats, but I guess I sat out that one.

My shift in opinion since then is that I now think that Harper just might pull out that majority.

But we'll see. (Your Grit win prediction would make for a very stable minority parliament -- the Liberal/NDP alliance would have a healthy majority.)

I do think I am unrealistic as it would require Dion to not be a botch - that is possible but not probable. Still, I think the CPC is as much at risk of taking this to be be a bi-polar race. I can't see either the Grits or Tories getting above 33% even with a semi-collapse for the Bloc.

CPC 158 (NL-2, NS+1, NB+1, QC+26, ON+6, MB+2)
Lib 92 (NL+2, NS-1, NB-1, QC-5, ON-4, MB-2)
NDP 27 (ON-2)
Bloc 31 (QC-20)
Independent 0 (QC-1)

I like David's numbers and his logic; but I am not going to put the Currie curse on them.

I suspect it will be closer to:

CPC 148 (NL-2, NS+1, NB+1, QC+20, ON+2, MB+2)
Lib 96(NL+2, NS-1, NB-1, QC-5, MB-2)
NDP 27 (ON-2)
Bloc 37 (QC-14)
Independent 0 (QC-1)

At the moment I don't see a CPC majority but that could change if Dion continues to sound incoherent on the Green Shift and flies about in an ancient jet spewing carbon and touting offsets bought from a company which appears to do nothing at all to actually, you know, reduce emissions.

And, thinking strategically, another minority would work well for the CPC as a) the Liberals would have to stick with Dion if he actually kept it close, b) the Liberal Party will be entirely out of money, c) with no money and Dion as the leader the end of the Liberal Party as an organization would be in sight.

PEI: Libs - 3, Cons - 1.

Harruph. I haven't been so disgruntled since the Martinite Coup...

CPC - 127
Lib - 128
NDP - 25
Bloc - 22
Green - 6

And I'm likely voting green, because although I like Peter personally, I want a message sent to the Party as a whole that we need a new leader.

Jay - I'm going to stick my numbers, but there's a temptation to remove 3 CPCs in Ontario and switch them to Lib and 10 CPCs in Quebec to Bloc. We'll see. I'd like the other folks to break out their candidates by province

Here's a spreadsheet of provinces and seats if you're into that sort of thing.

Also, I do not see how the CPC gains in Atlantic Canada at all, David. Perhaps Hans can comment but I would think the Danny Williams role will see to a Grit sweep there.

I have them losing two seats in Newfoundland and retaining one; I'm not sure how much pull Danny has outside of there and I'm only calling for +1 in each of NS/NB which I think is very reasonable given the green shaft stuff which is very much aimed at urbanites.

Any swing in Atlantic Canada is done on looking at strength of candidate incumbency vs. government incumbency. I will look into each riding details and get back to you.

Well much to the disappointment of both Dion and, apparently, Harper, I am predicting a Conservative Majority (cue canned Lloyd Robertson Election Central fanfare), as follows: Con - 155, Lib - 90, NDP - 24, Green - 1, Ind - 2.

Danny Millions has no pull outside NL but I defer to David who says Tories will drop by 2 there. In the rest of Atlantic Canada, I see Peter MacKay's profile giving a boost to the Tories in NS by a couple of seats (except in Cape Breton) and independent Bill Casey staying on. In NB, I see status quo except for a slight gain for Tories in the South by one seat. In PEI, the Tories will gain the seat of Egmont based on local weirdness too complicated to get into.

Slight seat by seat gains across the country for the Tories will vault them into a majority situation. I don't understand BC at all but it will be the bellweather. My Province by Province predictions look like this: BC: Con 20, Lib 8, NDP 7, Green 1; AB - Con 28; SK: Con 13, Lib 1; MB: Con 8, NDP 4, Lib 2; ON: Lib 50, Con 48, NDP 8; QC: BQ 35, Con 26, Lib 12, NDP 1, Ind 1; NB: Lib 5, Con 4, NDP 1; NS: Con 6, Lib 2, NDP 2, Ind 1; PE: Lib 3, Con 1; NL: LIb 6, Con 1; NU: Lib 1; NT: NDP 1; YK: Con 1.

...In PEI, the Tories will gain the seat of Egmont based on local weirdness too complicated to get into...

That is no sort of citizen journalism! In an election this close, the nation needs your description of local weirdness.

Well, okay, twist my rubber arm....

In all the other PEI ridings, the Liberal candidates are beatable but the Tory backroom was too timid to nominate good candidates. In Egmont, on the other hand, veteran MP Joe McGuire is retiring so that left the field wide open. The Tories nominated former Minister of Public Works Gail Shea, who was Binns' field boss for Western PEI. Meanwhile, former Lib Minister Bobby Morrissey took the Lib nomination held over a year ago ahead of former Premier Keith Milligan and some pleasant (but, my apologies, forgettable) Acadian woman. Then suddenly, last month, Morrissey says, "oh geez sorry, there's too much uncertainty around when the election will be called and I have a business opportunity that I need to make a decision about and I can't both pursue the business opportunity and run for Parliament." The wrinkle is, he is not saying what the business opportunity is. Plus, he was nominated ages ago and suffered the uncertainty but a month before the election that was widely predicted to happen this fall, he decides there is too much uncertainty? Anyway, so Morrissey bails and Milligan throws his hat in the ring again and in a rushed nomination wins by acclamation. Hello! Egmont has elected Liberals since 1984. MacKenzie King parachuted into that riding in 1919 or something because it was a safe seat. A year ago 3 people wanted the job, now its acclaimed? Either Morrissey did some polling, saw he was in tough against Shea and bailed (leading to my prediction) or the Libs are playing too many backroom leadership games (Milligan was a Kennedy supporter in 2006) which are too obvious to locals and will therefore backfire (leading to my prediction) in part (and forming part of the basis for my prediction) because Milligan, although a super guy for whom I have lots of personal respect, hasn't had any political luck since losing the landslide 1996 provincial election to Binns.

I think that about sums up the reasons for that prediction. You just need 307 more reports like this for a complete understanding of how the election will go.

Um:
Danny Millions has no pull outside NL but I defer to David who says Tories will drop by 2 there. In the rest of Atlantic Canada, I see Peter MacKay's profile giving a boost to the Tories in NS by a couple of seats (except in Cape Breton) and independent Bill Casey staying on.

NS: Con 6, Lib 2, NDP 2, Ind 1; NT: NDP 1; YK: Con 1.

I don't know what you think you know about NS, but there's *no way* that the CPC will take six seats there. If things go against the Liberals, Halifax West and Dartmouth will probably shift orange (like in 1997) and Brison is in any case safe in Kings-Hants. It's possible they might gain West Nova given Thibault's tenuous hold there, but they could well lose South Shore-St-Margaret's Bay, and it's not clear to me what will happen in Casey's riding. That again leaves Cape Breton which is more hospitable to the (rather populist in NS) NDP.

Oh, and the CPC came third in the Yukon last time - why will it win in 2008?

Here's what I know about NS: I'm an expert in everything magna cum laude, just like everybody else in here. In other words, its just my prediction based on nothing but my own whims. Its not like I'm asking anyone to rely on my wisdom. I also picked the Patriots over the Giants in the SuperBowl last year. Please note, though, I had the cajones to pick numbers in every province and teritory (and even explain why), so when you do that, I will be more likely to listen to your hectoring. Until then, take a pill. P.S. Everyone I know from YK thinks they are a frontiersman, hence the CPC vote.

He was not so much hectoring as playing the role of Hector, I thought. Was it is use of asterisks?

I picked the Giants - I even bought the t-shirt at the beginning of the year.

Ol' Hector, from down the road? Okay, then....