The mere suggestion of a summer campaign was so unpalatable for Canadians that the man who could have made it so, [Michael Ignatieff], suffered a drop in support. When Ignatieff and [Stephen Harper] struck a tenuous deal to stave off an election, voters sighed in relief, but started to re-think their love of minority governments.

Most opinion polls taken in the last three weeks show that the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Liberals are, for the most part, in a statistical dead-heat. There has been a modest surge in support for the Tories, and a drop in support for the Liberals, who had a four-to-six-point lead before Ignatieff teased us with the possibility of a summer election.

The Tories top most polls now, but they have not achieved a lead larger than a margin of error. In fact, they remain stuck in the low 30s of support, down from the 38 per cent support they generated in last fall's election. And it seems increasingly unlikely that in the next election, the Tories could count on the collapse in Liberal support they saw in the last campaign when former leader Stephane Dion dragged the Grits down to their worst showing in recent memory.