Canadians are looking at one of the closest elections in a generation, says a new poll.

The Liberals, with 32 per cent support from decided voters, and the Conservatives at 31 per cent are in a statistical tie, finds the Ipsos-Reid poll for CTV and The Globe and Mail.

But the Ipsos-Reid seat projection model gives the Conservatives a chance at 115 to 119 seats, while the Liberals might win 99 to 103 on Monday night.

Asked who he'd bet a toonie on, Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos-Reid, told CTV.ca: "The model right now is showing the Conservatives have a slight lead, but it would be two bucks and not $200 that I'd be betting."

It's going to come down to fights in individual ridings, "and that's very difficult to predict," he said.

"I would have thought that maybe we would have seen a bigger spread as the week continued. This of course is the last week of the campaign and you would think that some people would be really firming up their vote," the Globe and Mail's Jane Taber said on Canada AM.  

"I think it's going to be British Columbia for the first time in a long time that will decide the fate of this election," she said. This year, Elections Canada decided not to ban broadcasters and Web sites from transmitting election results while polls are still open in the West.

Voters were asked: Thinking of how you feel right now, if a federal election were held tomorrow, which of the following parties' candidates would you, yourself, be most likely to support?

• Liberals: 32 per cent (up one percentage point over a June 22 poll)
• Conservatives: 31 per cent (up three points)
• NDP: 17 per cent (up one point)
• Bloc Quebecois: 12 per cent (unchanged)
• Greens: 6 per cent (unchanged)
• Undecided: 7 per cent (down nine points)
• Other party: 2 per cent

The seat projection model predicts the following if the election were held based on the above:

• Conservatives: 115 - 119 seats
• Liberals: 99 - 103 seats
• Bloc Quebecois: 64 - 68
• NDP: 22 - 26

In Quebec, the Bloc has 48 per cent support, down five points, while the Liberals have jumped six points to 29 per cent.

The high end of the seat projection model for the Bloc would give them a virtual monopoly as there are only 75 seats in Quebec.

"The seat models are more art than science, and that's what it's throwing off right now based on the math of the model," Bricker said. "Sixty-eight would be a historic victory for the Bloc. Even I am sitting back wondering if they'll be able to achieve that on election night, but we'll see what happens. They have a 20-some-odd point lead. They look very strong."

The Liberals still lead in Ontario, with 38 per cent support, which is down four points from Monday's poll.

The Conservatives rose four points to 34 per cent. The NDP is unchanged at 20 per cent support and the Greens trail at six per cent.

Canada's largest province has 106 seats  this time. The Liberals won 100 of 103 seats there in the 2000 federal election.

"The big problem the Liberals have is they lack a strong geographic base ... lacking that dominant position in Ontario is really hurting them this time," Bricker said.

In Atlantic Canada, where 33 seats are available, the Liberals lead at 44 per cent (up seven points) over the NDP's 26 per cent (up 11 points). The Conservatives trail at 23 per cent -- an 18-point drop.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan is closest to a three-way fight. The Conservatives have 36 per cent support, down one point, while the Liberals have 32 per cent support, also down a point. The NDP have surged eight points to 25 per cent. The Greens have seven per cent, up five points. There are 28 seats between the two provinces.

The Conservatives have a 39-point lead over the Liberals in Alberta, holding 59 per cent support. There are 28 seats there.

In B.C., the Conservatives are surging. They have 44 per cent support, up eight points. The Liberals are down eight points to 24 per cent. The NDP has 22 per cent support, up four points. The Green Party trails at six per cent, which is unchanged. There are 36 seats there.

Who people think will win

Canadians were asked: Regardless of whom you are voting for, which party will win the up-coming election and form Canada's next government?

Forty-nine per cent of respondents think the Liberals will win the election and form the next government -- a drop of 23 per cent from a pre-writ poll.

Conversely, 35 per cent believe the Conservatives will -- a 17-point rise.

Polling over the campaign

If one looks at the CTV Poll Tracker, the NDP has hovered between 16 to 18 per cent over the course of the campaign, which started May 23.

"They can talk about momentum or whatever they want to talk about, but what's really happened is the NDP has moved back to a traditional level of support for them, and they really haven't broken past 20 per cent," Bricker said.

Over the course of the campaign, the Liberals trended down and the Conservatives grew -- until the period between June 18 and 22, when the Liberals passed the Conservatives again, polling 34 per cent to the Tories' 28 per cent.

"What happened was, the slogan the Liberals had: "think twice, vote once" -- that's what Stephen Harper went through at the end of last week and through the weekend, but seems to have picked it back up now this week," Bricker said.

"He's gotten back on his message, which is why the Liberals don't deserve to be re-elected. And that's the winning ballot question for him."

Harper sagged when he diverted into side issues -- bilingualism and Air Canada, child pornography -- and got on the defensive. The negatives on Harper remain high, "but he's just not scary enough to be defeated," Bricker said.

The election could turn on 10 to 12 seats. At this point, the question as to who will win could hinge on which party can get their vote to the polls.

"At this stage, it moves from the wholesale messages to the retail organization and actually getting the vote out, what they call G-O-V-T," Bricker said.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives have different problems in their internal organizations. "So between those two potentially hobbled organizations, which one can do the best job of getting the vote out?" he asked.

Methodology

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll for the CTV and the Globe and Mail conducted from June 21 to June 23. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 2000 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within ±2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.