What will the Ontario NDP do if it assumes balance of power under a minority government?

It's looking like a minority government might be in the offing for Ontario with NDP Leader Andrea Horwath holding the balance of power.

The latest Leger Marketing poll has the Conservatives at 36 per cent, the Liberals at 33 per cent, the NDP at 26 per cent and the Greens at five.

With these levels of support ThreeHundredEight.com's seat projection model shows 50 seats for the Liberals, 36 for the Progressive Conservatives, and 21 for the New Democrats.

As 54 seats are needed to form a majority government, the Liberals would look to the NDP for support at Queen's Park.

John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail suggests Tim Hudak has no one to blame but himself.

"The Conservative leader's strident assault on a Liberal tax credit for employers who hire new Canadians appears to have backfired," he wrote.

"Mr. Hudak's full-throated claim that "foreign workers" would be stealing jobs from the native-born does not appear to have gone down well in the Toronto area, where almost half of the population was born overseas."

John Ivison of the National Post argues the NDP still haven't peaked.

"Even at current polling levels, Ms. Horwath may hold the balance of power in a minority government," he wrote.

"And that's before the leaders' debate, in which she stands a very good chance of picking up more support, particularly among women, who are likely to respond well to her brand of warm fuzziness."

While Ontario voters may be cringe at the thought of another minority government after years of political gamesmanship on Parliament Hill, the Ottawa Citizen suggests a minority government at Queen's Park might not be such a bad thing.

"The big issue - fiscal responsibility, deficit reduction and taxation - is big enough that if either party falters in a serious way, the other would be there to vote down the budget. That might prove to be an advantage of a minority government.

"A minority government might also mean that if the next government squanders even some of our money in some particularly egregious way - as the McGuinty Liberals did with eHealth, for example - that, too, could trigger a lesson in accountability."

The National Post, on the other hand, warns a minority government would be disastrous for Ontario.

"The prospect of Ms. Horwath's NDP holding the balance of power in a minority government is one that should not be taken lightly by the province's voters," Scott Stinson wrote.

"The NDP, its platform says, would undo the corporate-tax reductions that have been the focus of the Liberals' competitiveness agenda. It would embrace Buy Ontario schemes. It would remove the HST from electricity and heating bills . . . As detrimental to the economy as any of these things would be, consider as well the prospect of Mr. McGuinty being at the negotiating table when the NDP outlined its conditions for support."

While a lot could happen in the final two weeks of this election campaign, after Oct. 6 the NDP could yield a lot of power.

(CP Photo)