The spectre of a coalition government quickly became a key election battlefront, as the opening shots of a five-week campaign were fired:

  • Conservative Leader Stephen Harper painted the coalition notion as downright demonic in his first official campaign speech, accusing Liberals of harbouring secret plans of forming such a government with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois.
  • Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was in turn forced to categorically state he would not join a coalition, despite the fact that such governments are a legitimate feature of the democratic process.
  • NDP Leader Jack Layton muddied the waters by saying that he would be open to forming a coalition government should the need arise.

With the two main leaders treating the thought of a coalition like some form of plague, the voting public could be forgiven for having doubts about their legitimacy.

Harper has described a coalition government as undemocratic and reckless, stating that the party that gets the most votes is supposed to win.

But coalitions -- formed between two or more parties that collectively hold enough seats to form governments -- are commonly found around the world.

Britain is currently led by such a government, after a Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition ousted Gordon Brown's Labour party in 2010. And Canada is not without its own coalition history:

  • Canada' "Great Coalition" was formed in 1864 when the Clear Grits, Parti Bleu and the Conservative Party joined together. The coalition government led to the creation of the Dominion of Canada.
  • In 1917, Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden recruited members of the Liberal Party to create a Unionist government, which held until the end of the First World War.
  • Canada's most recent coalition came in 1999, when the Saskatchewan Liberal Party joined Roy Romanow's NDP government.
  • Canada's current coalition debate stems from 2008, when former Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton agreed to form a coalition, with the support of Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.
  • As the Leader of the Opposition in 2004, Harper wrote to the Governor General that he had been in close consultation with Layton and Duceppe. His letter suggested he was ready to form an alternative government with NDP and Bloc support.