As Canadian voters prepare to head to the polls this spring after opposition parties defeated the minority Harper government today, a local public policy professor says some might be too cynical to cast their ballots.

Simon Fraser University professor Doug McArthur said federal election voter turnout could be impacted by skepticism among the public.

“A lot of people are fairly cynical, and I think cynicism of that sort at a time like this will turn people off and will result in a decline in the number of people who actually go out and vote,” he told the Straight by phone.

McArthur said a lot of people are expecting another Conservative minority government.

"There is a fair amount of cynicism”¦a sense that this is not really a necessary election, it's not going to change things very much in terms of the ultimate outcome,” he said.

Yet McArthur predicted there could be a change in party representation in B.C.

“I think B.C. is going to be interesting because as I see it, there’ s a real probability the Liberals are going to go into further decline in B.C. and that’s bad news for them,” he said. “I think both the NDP and the Conservatives are feeling pretty optimistic, and we’ll see whether that’s justified.”

McArthur said while the vote today is a first for the country, it should be seen within the context of a minority Parliament.

"This has happened in a very fractious minority Parliament at a time when the opposition parties have clearly decided they want an election, and so in some ways you have to see it as a political strategy that's specific to the time and the circumstances," he said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to call an early May election after he meets with the governor general tomorrow.

In a statement released today, Harper said he was disappointed by the vote, and that there was nothing in the budget that "the Opposition could not or should not have supported."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Ignatieff and his coalition partners in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois made abundantly clear that they had already decided they wanted an election instead, Canada’s fourth election in seven years, an election Canadians had told them clearly that they did not want," the statement read.