Abortion and Coalition issue

An MP from Saskatchewan, Brad Trost talked about cutting off funding to planned parenthood due to their pro-abortion position.  The Tories wouldn't say whether they would or not, but made clear they would not past an anti-abortion law.  Certainly this plays to the hidden agenda issue although I don't think based on the current polls and likely results a women's right to choose is threatened.  It is true that the majority of Conservative MPs oppose abortion, however they do have a sizable minority who are pro-choice so they would need to win at least 190 seats to have any chance at passing an anti-abortion bill.  While some point out that there are some pro-life Liberals, many of those came from Rural Ontario which is now largely Conservative and of the few remaining, I suspect it would be a whipped vote if the Tories had a majority thus it wouldn't pass.  In 1987, Bill Domm's private members bill to reinstate the death penalty received the support of the majority of PC MPs, but a minority voted against it combined with almost all opposition members, so it was defeated despite the fact the PCs had a strong majority of 211 seats. 

On the issue of a coalition, Ignatieff stated in a CBC interview that whichever party had the most seats would get a chance to govern first, but if they lost the confidence of the house and the governor general called on his party to form the government, he would be willing to.  From a constitutional point of view, what he said is entirely correct.  However, when it comes to coalitions, there are two things that need to be considered.  First is it constitutionally valid and if the Tories have a minority and the opposition leader who wishes to become PM can command the confidence of the majority of members in the house of commons, then absolutely it is.  The second is whether it is morally valid and this is a gray area that depends heavily on public opinion.  While the opposition parties can ignore public opinion if they wish to, they do so at their own peril.  If the Tories lose a whole whack of seats and the Liberals get over 100 seats and the NDP and Liberals have the majority of seats in the House of Commons, then the public might support such an arrangement, however if the Tories increase their seat count but fall short of a majority, the Liberals lose seats but still remain the official opposition, the public would likely react quite negatively and both the NDP and Liberals would likely taking a beating in the next election.  While what Ignatieff said was constitutionally correct, it was probably not the smartest thing to say.  Even if planning such a move, better to not say anything about it during an election and then do it after and hope that by the time the next election rolls around, people forget about the broken promise.  While I will discuss the probability of a coalition in more detail after the election results are in, I don't think the Liberals will try to form government unless they gain several seats and the Tories lose several.  If it was 120 seats for the Tories and 100 seats for the Liberals then they might, but if it produces similiar results to the last election or the Tories gain seats but fall short of majority, then I don't think we will see a coalition.  Likewise despite Harper's unwillingness to cooperate, I think if backed into a corner he would make enough concessions to get one party on side albeit very reluctantly.