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Today's question: How do the Liberals, NDP and Greens deal with the fact they are splitting the centre-left vote in some parts of the country and how do the Tories take advantage of this?

Scott Reid, former director of communications for Paul Martin and a co-founder of the speechwriting firm Feschuk.Reid: Liberals take note: Jack Layton is trying to put an end to you. Not just win more seats. Not just raise his popular vote. Like Stephen Harper, he defines true victory as crippling the capacity of the Liberal Party to successfully compete in future elections.

That may seem like a far-flung notion but with some polls showing the Liberals drifting down to the low 20s and the NDP scratching up to the high teens, Mr. Layton sees the chance for a historic appeal.

Certainly, with the full influence of the Green vote impossible to gauge until after the debates the Liberals can take nothing for granted.

Mr. Layton's musings about a postelection coalition of the Liberals, NDP and Greens have a lot more to do with “help Jack” than “stop Harper.” He's attempting to reassure progressives it's safe to split their votes all over hell's half acre. But it's not.

Liberals must counter immediately. That begins by positioning themselves in the sensible centre rather than as the best of the left. They must emphasize their fiscal credentials, sharpen their critique of Mr. Harper and begin now with a blatant appeal to NDP and Green voters that the Liberals alone can keep the Conservatives from a majority.

Mr. Harper will exploit these factions by talking up the NDP in Quebec and even engaging Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in the debates. But it rests with the Liberals – beginning with their recalcitrant core voters. Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton are trying to kill your party. If you want to keep it, you'll have to defend it.

Goldy Hyder, former chief of staff to Joe Clark and currently senior vice-president with the communications firm Hill & Knowlton: In life and in politics, what goes around comes around. After having been the beneficiaries of a divided right that saw them win three consecutive majorities, the Liberal Party now finds itself as a part of the fractured left (with the NDP, BQ and, to a lesser extent, the Greens). While the outcome is not a given, this campaign suggests a fundamental realignment of the Canadian political spectrum is well under way.

For some time, the Liberal base and brand was so strong that it headed into federal elections with 30 per cent of the electorate in its camp. The same could not be said of the Conservative Party.

It can be argued that Stephen Harper conscientiously set out to level the playing field against the “natural governing party” by seeking to expand the traditional conservative base from rural, anglo, male, to include urban, francophone, minority communities, and women. And in doing so, Harper has moved the party closer to the centre (albeit still to the right of it).

Over the past two decades, Canadians have been moving more to the centre-right. Support for free trade, balanced budgets and paying down debt has taken hold even in provinces with NDP governments. Meanwhile the “new” Conservative Party's shift to its left meets Canadians in their comfort zone and creates an opportunity for the party to expand its base and strengthen its brand.

As for the left, perhaps it will come out of this election in need of engaging in its own “unite the left” exercise. There are already signs that such an effort is in the works at any cost. This week, Mr. Layton has mused that he would not rule out forming a coalition government with the Liberals if it would defeat the Tories. With Mr. Dion and Ms. May already working together, it seems there's a lot of love to go around on the left.

Peter Donolo, former director of communications for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and now a partner in the Strategic Counsel: If the opposition vote remains as diffuse as it is today, the Conservatives will be able to win the election just by standing still.

In Quebec, Jack Layton has become the Mario Dumont of this campaign.

Voters in surprising corners of the province are projecting a lot onto him - at a moment when they are reassessing the value proposition of the Bloc. Thanks to that - and the hard-hitting NDP ads - the NDP is resting comfortably in the mid-teens with voters in key battleground ridings in that province.

Here's the rub: That historic high is just high enough for the NDP to steal votes from the Bloc outside of Montreal and elect Conservative MPs, and to steal Liberal votes in Montreal and elect more Blocquistes on the island.

But it isn't likely - at this level - to put any additional Quebec seats into the NDP column. In battleground ridings in Ontario, it's the Green Party that is punching above its historic weight. But the effect is similar: If they hold onto the vote they're taking (mostly from Liberals), they'll be electing more Conservative MPs from these close-call Ontario ridings.

The only way that Stephane Dion could win this election, is by becoming the go-to-guy for anti-Harper voters. That isn't happening. In fact, the NDP and the Greens are eliciting more enthusiasm among opponents of the Harper government than the Liberals have. So, on balance, the growth on the left is a nightmare for the Liberals and a dream come true for the Tories.

Greg Lyle, managing director of the polling firm Innovative Research Group: Canada's first-past-the-post system forces voters to make compromises. In our system, only the voters who vote for the winning party in their riding are represented. If your candidate loses, even by just one vote, your voice is not heard in Parliament.

Moreover, in our system, you only need more votes than any other party. You don't need a majority. So if it is true there is a centre-left majority in Canada, the more options there are to divide the centre-left vote, the better for the Conservative Party.

However, whether there is a coherent left in Canada is not a settled question. When it comes to values, Canada is a fractured country. The centre-left has several core value divisions, the biggest being the role of government. Close to a third of Canadians feel government should focus on redistributing wealth rather than creating opportunity. This is not a small difference in opinion, but a fundamental dispute over the role of government that explains why New Democrats and Liberals feel the need to have two distinct parties.

There are also important differences with the Green Party. Most Canadians agree that we need to do more on the environment. There is certainly a consensus in the centre-left. But there is a major conflict on whether economic concerns or environmental concerns come first. New Democrats usually side with pocketbook concerns, Greens always put the environment first, and Liberals shift over time. Of course, the Bloc Québécois' core premise of Quebec sovereignty is in complete opposition to the federalist centre-left parties. The bottom line is that the ‘left' is far from united on its vision for Canada, and the differences are important.

Traditionally, the way the centre-left elites have sought to overcome these divisions and stop Tories from getting elected is with a call for strategic voting. The core premise of strategic voting is that centre-left voters should look for the party in their riding that has the best chance of beating the Conservatives and unite behind it. This is the strategy the Bloc is pushing in Quebec in this election. The problem with this strategy is that it is just not realistic. Many voters, particularly swing voters, do not have the information they need to make this choice. Even well-informed voters may not agree in many seats.

Moreover, it will take a wave of passionate fear of a Tory victory to trigger strategic voting. The only effective way to end vote splitting is to combine parties, and that won't happen in this election.

The Tories understand this. The new Conservative party exists as a vehicle to end vote splitting on the right. The Tories are trying to keep fear down by showing that Tories, even Stephen Harper, are people too.

That is why we see the sweater-vest ads. That is why there is no talk of market solutions to health care or revisiting equal marriage or abortion. In that light, it remains a puzzle why the Tories have yet to put to bed the culture issue which is mobilizing opposition to the Conservatives, especially in Quebec.

During this campaign all the centre-left parties can do is make a strategic voting appeal and stoke the fires of fear toward a Tory majority.

Joy MacPhail, former NDP leader in the B.C. Legislature, is a media commentator and chairwoman of OutTV: These two facts are indisputable: a solid majority of Canadians will not support the Conservatives under any circumstance and Canada has an energetic multiparty political system. Hallelujah to both.

For those who will not vote for Stephen Harper's Conservatives, the choice of an alternative will probably be based on who will make the best leader for all of Canada. Trust in that leader will colour their choice. Ability to deliver and a solid track record will be evaluated.

The Leader of the Bloc Québécois does not want the job of prime minister and therefore is no alternative for the citizens of Quebec who reject the Tories.

The Green Party Leader has already conceded the job to the flailing Liberal Leader and seems to be working mostly on getting herself elected as an MP. Even that seems dubious.

Stéphane Dion is skittish about his own sales pitch of the Liberal vision and cannot convince Canadians that he is actually in charge of his own team. His record to date has been to abstain from leadership.

That leaves Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democrats. Inside Parliament, he consistently opposed the Conservative agenda and demonstrated that in vote after vote against the Tories. Yet, even from his position as fourth party, he has had remarkable success in advancing his party's vision with legislation, particularly through laws protecting us against climate-change damage. He doesn't flip flop. He wants the job.

What advantage remains for Stephen Harper? He practises a divide-and-conquer strategy so I predict that a broader voter appeal is not in his cards.

Louise Beaudoin, former Parti Québécois cabinet minister: The killer question

Stephen Harper is turning to the same playbook that Jean Chrétien used during the 2000 election, hoping that it will produce the same results, which is a majority government with 41 per cent of the vote. But this is a mirror image of that election since at the time it was the right which was divided between Reformers and Conservatives, whereas today it is the centre-left that has shattered into several parties.

The Liberals, the Greens, the NDP and the Bloc, all variously progressive parties, cannot unite. It is obviously too late in the campaign and they are too different (this would be possible only if, as in France, there were two rounds). In order not to lose in the hinterland whatever it gains in Montreal, the Bloc must turn to issues that garnered a Quebec-wide consensus, issues that garnered unanimous votes by all three parties in the National Assembly.

Or the Bloc should endorse, as Gilles Duceppe has just done, Mario Dumont's five priorities, which reflect the concerns of many Quebeckers: recognition of the Quebec nation within Canada's Constitution, respecting Quebec's autonomy and its areas of jurisdictions, a renewed commitment to Kyoto with absolute emission targets, setting up economic and financial packages to help the forestry and manufacturing sectors, as well as letting Quebec determine its own investment priorities in infrastructures.

Mr. Dumont supports Stephen Harper despite the fact that the Conservatives have already responded negatively to some of his requests. Whereas the Bloc has grounds to believe that its supporters will be more coherent.For the Bloc, it would not only the best strategy but it is the only one that would let them to find a balance between its centre-left platform and its support for Quebec sovereignty. This would allow the party to reconcile itself with nationalists on the right as those who are on the left.