TORONTO – Liberals and Conservatives separated by a handful of votes, NDP sharply detached, Bloc growing in Quebec and Greens and People’s Party in trouble. In the second week of this summer election campaign, all the polls confirm that the balance of power between the parties in the running has now stabilized, with Erin O’Toole’s Tories patiently continuing to erode the support for the Liberals of outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and with the certainty, now established, that regardless of the results of September 20, also in the next legislature the country will be led by a minority government. The numbers, on the other hand, leave very little hope for those who have the ambition to win the absolute majority of the seats at stake in this election: no one, in fact, seems able to reach 170, the minimum number of deputies necessary to have an absolute majority in the House of Commons.  (more…)