Opinion polling in the Canadian federal election, 2006/Old projections

=Seat predictions=

The [http://predictor.hillandknowlton.ca/ Hill and Knowlton election predictor] has been used to compile these figures. A party needs 155 seats or more to have a majority. Bold text indicates a majority while "italic" text indicates a plurality. A star denotes the Official Opposition in the listed scenario.

The Hill and Knowlton predictor uses a "national swing" predictor to create riding predictors. A change in the national polling as it relates to the final vote percentages from the 2004 elections result in a change in each riding by that amount. The downside to this method is that it assumes the entire country and each riding to be fluctuating at the same rate and does not take local issues into account. However, it is helpful in indicating certain indirect trends.

The seats positioned in the "other" column are usually Surrey North and two ridings in Saskatchewan. The Hill and Knowlton predictor does not take into account different independent candidates running in those ridings, nor does it take into account the death of independent MP Chuck Cadman who won Surrey North in 2004 but will obviously not be a candidate in 2006.

#The Liberals, by convention, would become the official opposition should they tie with another party for the second highest number of seats in the House of Commons, as they were previously the governing party. Any mid-term reduction in the number of Liberal seats, however, would immediately result in the Bloc Quebecois becoming the official opposition.

The "Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy", using Barry Kay's regional swing model, predicted on January 10, 2006 that the election would result in the following representation in the House of Commons: 133 Conservative, 93 Liberal, 60 Bloc Quebecois, and 22 NDP. [http://info.wlu.ca/lispop/lispop] On January 20, this prediction was updated to call for the following representation: 139 Conservative, 83 Liberal, 56 Bloc Quebecois and 29 NDP. Each day during the campaign, the results of these two models and four others are averaged and displayed in graph form at [http://www.TrendLines.ca/politics.htm TrendLines.ca] . The volatility of Seat Projections (and polls) as exhibited in the 2004 Election is illustrated there as well.