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Will Stephen Harper resign before the 2015 election?

What a difference a few months makes.

In March, Steve Paikin — a journalist for TV Ontario — wrote a provocative column about Stephen Harper resigning this summer.

Paikin's musings were collectively dismissed by those in the Ottawa bubble.

[ Related: MP Brent Rathgeber quits Tory caucus: Another hit to the Conservative brand? ]

Fast forward to June: Justin Trudeau is now leader of the Liberal Party, the Tories are down in the polls and Harper has been marred with a long list of challenges and scandals which include a Senate expense fiasco, a $90,000 gift from his chief of staff to a sitting legislator, the robo-call ruling suggesting links to the Conservative Party database and the Rathgeber affair.

All of the sudden, Paikin is not a lone wolf as speculation about Stephen Harper's future is growing.

In her column for Toronto Star last week, Chantal Hébert wrote that her thoughts on this subject have changed somewhat.

With every passing day, the notion that Stephen Harper could pack it in before the next election and let someone else try to keep his fractious party whole enough to hang onto power in two years sound less and less far-fetched.

Over the past two weeks, serious but also eerily familiar cracks in the party have surfaced.

Unless that changes quickly, the prime minister will not remain the sole master of his political destiny for much longer.

Norman Spector, former Chief of Staff of Brian Mulroney, told CKNW radio that the Harper may not have any choice but to resign.

"I think that he's so mishandled [the Senate expense scandal] that people are so suspicious now that I can't think of any other ways other than offering up his own head to put this scandal to bed," he said on Monday.

"My own view is the Conservatives will be much stronger going into the election with a fresh new leader. But more importantly, I don't see many ways for Harper to dispel the Senate, Duffy, Nigel Wright for many many more months."

[ Related: Conservative MP says 'We are not trained seals' ]

Political consultant Gerry Nicholls, however, has a very different point of view. He says that we all — collectively — need to relax.

"Politicians rarely surrender power easily and in Harper’s case he has good reasons for hanging on. He needs one more term to do what he wants to do and despite all scandals swirling around Ottawa, he’s still in a good position to win in 2015," he told Yahoo! Canada News.

"Yes, I realize that goes against the emerging conventional wisdom, but the media tends to exaggerate the political impact of scandals and they also forget that Harper still has two years to turn things around.

"Anybody writing Harper’s political obituary should remember the lesson of BC Premier Christy Clark, who managed to overcome both bad polls and scandals to win a majority government."

Do you think that Stephen Harper will resign before the 2015 election?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)

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