It was a good week for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives as the latest aggregate of polls gives them a 20-seat lead over the NDP.

But they’re still a long way away from the 170-seat target of a majority government, and without that, Canada may be left with a tenuous, minority government that the two major opposition parties have said they won’t support.

The latest seat projections by the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy (Lispop) used eight polls, including approximately 12,000 respondents to come up with the projections which suggest the Conservatives could pick up 126 seats – 20 more than the NDP, and 22 more than the Liberals. Both the Bloc Quebecois, and the Green Party, pick up one seat each.

The Conservatives picked up 12 seats in the projections since last week, while the Liberals, and NDP, lost two and 11, respectively.

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And most of the Conservatives gains came from the NDP losses.

“Clearly the NDP is slipping in some places more than others,” Barry Kay, a politics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University said in an interview Tuesday morning.

“The other thing about public opinion though is it does move in waves. And once a decline starts, I’m not saying it will continue next week, but frequently that happens.” Tweet This

The NDP, which started the campaign in first place, has dropped to third, and in terms of public opinion, had a bad week. The party lost six percentage points in Quebec, resulting in a Conservative gain of four seats in the province. The NDP also lost three percentage points in British Columbia, and one in Atlantic Canada.

But the Conservative gain can’t just be attributed to a stumbling NDP, Kay said. The Tories also gained some seats in Ontario, including Brampton-North, Oakville, Glengarry, and London West.

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» Click to explore the latest seat projections in your riding Conservative Conservative Leaning Conservative Leaning Conservative Liberal Liberal Leaning Liberal Leaning Liberal NDP NDP Leaning NDP Leaning NDP Bloc Québécois Bloc Québécois Leaning Bloc Québécois Leaning Bloc Québécois Too Close to Call Too Close to Call Independent Independent Note: "Leaning" indicates a 5% to 10% lead. "Too Close to Call" indicates a difference under 5%. Courtesy of Lispop.ca.

The Tories are winning – but can they form a stable government?

But even if the Conservatives win the election, they’re well off the roughly 170-seat target they’ll need to form a majority government, Kay said.

“If [the Conservatives] come first, they will meet parliament and they will be defeated. Trudeau and Mulcair have said as much now that under no circumstances would they keep a minority conservative government in power,” Kay said. Tweet This

“[Harper] can do all sorts of things to say that ‘we as the conservative government will do this if you guys keep our government in power.’ At this point, I can’t imagine the Liberals or the NDP propping him up, he doesn’t need them both, but he needs one or the other.”

Both Mulcair and Trudeau have been emphatic in saying they won’t support a minority Conservative government. Trudeau said last week there was “no circumstances” in which he’d support one.

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Similarly, Mulcair said there “isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell” he’d support a Conservative minority government, according to the Toronto Star.

How are the seats distributed regionally?

Both Ontario and British Columbia are close races, with the Conservatives moving ahead of the Liberals in total projected ridings. The Tories are projected to win 54 Ontario ridings, six ahead of the Liberals’ 48. The NDP is projected to win 19.

In British Columbia, the Conservatives and NDP are tied with 16 – seven ahead of the Liberals’ nine. The Green Party could win one.

Though the NDP lost a handful of seats in Quebec since last week’s projections, they still dominate the province. The Lispop projections suggest they could pick up 54 seats, 40 more than the Liberals’ 14 ridings. The Conservatives are projected to win nine, while the Bloc Quebecois could win one.

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And the Tories win Alberta – again with 29 of the province’s 34 seats. The Tories win in the Prairies as well, winning 15 of the region’s 31 seats.