Could the outcome of the October 2015 federal election be a minority parliament where the issue of a coalition government becomes the key political question?

Voting day is still ten months away, but earlier this week Globe and Mail columnist Campbell Clark reported, "An aggregate of polls compiled by threehundredeight.com puts [Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives] at 32 per cent, four points behind the Liberals, effectively neck and neck to form a minority government."

And earlier this month, CTV's Don Martin made a series of new year's predictions speculating that, "A Conservative minority government will be elected following a shaky foreign affairs policy performance by Justin Trudeau in the leaders’ debates, which cost him the lead in the polls. The Harper government will be toppled after losing a Throne Speech confidence vote in late November. A deal to support a Liberal government for two years will be inked by the NDP in exchange for enacting a national daycare program."

The Globe and Mail's Clark has also noted, "For Mr. Harper, winning a minority government in 2015 probably isn’t winning at all. This time, opposition parties would face a lot more pressure to oust him quickly. This will be the year when a minority PM must become a majority man. ...If he wins only a minority government, anti-Harper voters won’t appreciate an opposition party that props him up in power."