OTTAWA: Canada's federal election Monday is too close to call, raising the prospect of a potentially destabilizing political battle between the ruling Conservatives and opposition parties. Polls show the Conservatives are set to win the most seats in the 308-seat House of Commons but it is impossible to say whether they will capture a majority, or if they can find opposition support to make a minority government work. Canada — the largest single supplier of energy to the United States — has not seen such an unpredictable election for more than three decades, McGill University political science professor Richard Schultz told Reuters. “It's so up in the air ... as a close watcher (of politics), I'm as confused as anyone by this,” he said. The right-of-center Conservatives have been in power since early 2006 with two successive minority governments, which required them to gain opposition support to pass key bills. They insist they need a majority to keep taxes low and ensure Canada continues to recover from the global crisis. Prime Minister Stephen Harper says if he falls short of his goal, center-left opposition parties will oust him and create a “dangerous” coalition guaranteed to wreck the economy. His main target is the left-leaning New Democrats, running a strong second in the polls. They promise to raise corporate taxes, increase social spending and bring in a cap and trade system to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. “I think the New Democrats' economic platform would be an utter disaster for the country,” said Harper, who has run a relentlessly negative five-week campaign. “A New Democrat-led minority coalition would ... do enormous damage every single day it is in office,” he told the Toronto Star in an interview published Sunday.
