Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

UPDATED: Conservative ads succeed in moving the numbers!

by Paul Wells on Monday, May 25, 2009 12:39am - 122 Comments

harper-que New large-sample Quebec poll, taken during the first four days of the Conservatives’ new ad campaign, shows the Conservative party has fallen to fourth in Quebec, behind the NDP. Stephen Harper’s party is now polling about as well as the sum of the performance of Stockwell Day’s Canadian Alliance and Joe Clark’s Progressive Conservatives in 2000. So it’s going pretty well, really.

UPDATE: The new ads are working with unprecedented speed. Why, it took only days for the Conservatives to drive their numbers down to the same 15% level the Liberals were at in Quebec a year ago, after months of anti-Dion ads. And that’s what Harper wanted to do, right? Drive his party support down to Dion-like levels in Quebec, right? Yes? No?

UP-IS-THE-NEW-DOWNDATE, Monday morning: Still, it’s important to keep hope alive. That’s why (both of these links are to Le Devoir articles in Conservative Party-approved Quebec-French) Chantal Hébert explains the Conservatives have hitched their wagons irrevocably to the Action Démocratique in Quebec. Super Mario’s old party “may be a shadow of what it once was,” Chantal writes, “it’s still in better shape than the federal Conservative party.” And how’s that working out? The rest of today’s poll shows the ADQ at 8%.

So cheer up, Conservatives. The boss has a master plan to cut your party’s remaining Quebec support in half! I hear Dimitri and Leo are working on it full time.

Tags: Guess they don't mind French French

More by Paul Wells

madeyoulook

Association does not mean cause.

Suggestion: Moving numbers succeed in unleashing Conservative ads.
Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

Those are some delicious numbers in Quebec 37% LPC vs. 33% BQ means the BQ would back down from an election I’d imagine. The Conservative implosion helps that, of course.

Bert

Your numers are all wrong. You are only breaking down the 40% that vote. The other 60% vote ” non of the above” and thats not only in Quebec but the rest of the country.

Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

Btw, great tag Paul. Hilarious.
ARX

I thought over the last couple of months or so the last few Quebec polls & regional breakdowns had Tory support in the low teen range. If so, perhaps the Tories can take comfort knowing the damage in Quebec can get no worse, and that they’ve hit a floor, so to speak. Of course it can’t be good days over there if the whole endeavour backfires so spectacularly, that aside from giving a boost to the Liberals, who had been very close behind the Bloc in the battle for first, but they actually help the NDP gain further credibility in the province. It’s making me quite interested to see a national poll to see if this is just a Quebec effect, or resonating nationwide.

lorne

There is no “floor” in Canadian politics.

Ask the Socreds, if you can find any.

sapphireandsteel

I haven’t seen a Socred since I had a black & white TV in my basement.

Bert

Are you kidding. BC is all socreds in liberal clothing. Lol

sapphireandsteel

I am not kidding Bert. I did used to have a black and white TV in my basement years ago.

Bert

You can find all the socreds in BC. They call themselves liberals now. Give me a break.

sapphireandsteel

Semantics Bert. That’s like saying that Mats Sundin is still a Leaf but it’s just laundry day.

Bert

Hey lets not equate politics with hockey. Gives hockey a bad name.
Comparisions to used car salesmen of the 1950s would be more in line. Lol
Canuckistanian

“Comparisions to used car salesmen of the 1950s would be more in line.”

don’t disrespect used car salesmen. canadian pols are more like aluminum siding salesman ;-)

Douglass

I wish they’d stop calling themselves Liberals in BC. At least when it was Socreds you knew what you were getting.

Canuckistanian

classical liberals; like australia. very pro-business, however the last term illustrated that Gordo discovered other tenets of liberalism.

Geiseric the Lame

That’s funny.

Because February’s Fiscal Monitor has $81B of social credit written all over it.

http://shmooreport.blogspot.com/ Shmoo Report

If Quebecers are supportive of Iggy they are stupider then I thought. Lets face it they have elected a party that doesnt want to be part of Canada so why not have a PM who doesnt either …lol

kc

Yeah, it’s that sorta attitude that will bing the Tory support right back up there…not!

http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

Zing c. 1998.

dan in van

You mean like the guy who wanted to firewall a province from the rest of the country? Or who went crying to the Wall St Journal when his country decided it didn’t want to partake in an illegal war? Or is it the guy who, when defending his choice in backing said war, chose to plagarize an Australian leader, and rode that speech to some pretty positive huzzahs? It must be the so-called leader who in his effort to buy your vote — oops, you’ve already traded it and your soul for a 2% gst cut, right! — has launched into the biggest deficit spending, even beginning before the economic crisis that would-have-already-been-here-by-now stuff, than any other government in Canadian HISTORY? The guy who has gone on record as calling American Republicans as his guiding light. That’s some strange patriotic love god you’ve got there, bub.

paulsstuff

Might want to google Ignatieff Bush Iraq War.

Jean Proulx

How stupid did you think we were?
sapphireandsteel

Why don’t we just kick you out of Canada? That would probably solve the other problems.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

I think we can file the French ad under “trying too hard.”

Wotcher?

Or under “what were you trying to do, exactly?”

kc

To paraphrase Hebert: Harper thought that his playing nice stategy wasn’t workng…hence the attack adds to close the gap with the Libs. But what if it was the opposite; what if the reason the Tories had been doing quite well for the incumbents during a major recession was…goofed again… chessmaster??

TJ Cook

If there’s one thing I understand about politics, it’s that a conservative can never fail, except by not being conservative enough.

These numbers are a sign that Harper needs to do more of the same but HARDER. I recommend an endless string off attacks ads targeting Ignatieff – increasingly shrill and personal. They should make things up if they have to.

Somebody get Doug Finley on the phone!

http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

If there’s one thing I understand about politics, it’s that a conservative can never fail, except by not being conservative enough.

Gerry Nicholls?

Jean Proulx

These are some richly deserved polling numbers in Quebec.

Harper let his mask slip last election campaign when he mocked “rich artists who gather at galas to whine about their grants”. And the mask fell again during the coalition drama when he was venomous in talking about “separatists and socialists” and “traitors”. Quebecers see through him now. I have an exceedingly difficult time seeing the Cons polling numbers going back up in Quebec as long as he is leader.

And those low QC numbers will trouble people in Ontario and Atlantic Canada who are sensitive to national unity and uncomfortable with a federal govt that does not have at least some measure of support in Quebec.

JMD

Actually a lot of people in Ontario and points west are fed up with blackmailing Quebec whiners. Please, Quebec, just leave. Oh, I forgot, Quebec won’t leave because it would lose all those goodies that taxpayers from the rest of Canada shower on la belle province. I long for the day when the rest of Canada elects a government that leaves Quebec on the outside looking in. Then it will be time for Quebecois to put up or shut up. As population and the country’s economic centre of gravity shifts westward, that day is coming.

Jean Proulx

Hit a nerve JMD? You can just taste that sweet sweet day when Quebec will finally eat it eh? You’re like a carbon copy of the hardcore Péquistes here..with a little soupçon of Rush Limbaugh thrown in there too. So full of resentment. So uninterested in what we have in common, as opposed to what divides us.

JMD

Not sure how much Quebec and the rest of Canada have in common, Jean. Quebec is the only region of the country that has, since the 1990s, sent a sizeable delegation of MPs to Ottawa whose stated purpose is to destroy the country.

Michael

JMD,

If Quebec sovereignty is going to “destroy the country” as you imply, why are you cheering for it to happen?
Jean Proulx

logic fail
http://shmooreport.blogspot.com/ Shmoo Report

Please leave the country, Allions. Go. Canadians would be better off without Quebec.

sapphireandsteel

Um, that day is still pretty far away. The population in Western Canada isnt close to Central Canada and if you take out BC, then you’re even further away. Populations just don’t move as fast as you’d like nor will they believe what you want. Sorry JMD, but the dictatorship in your mind will probably never happen. BTW I live in the west and dont share your small minded anger.

http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com bigcitylib

See, what the polls say now doesn’t matter. When the writ drops, a meme shall rise in the brains of the masses (planted there by the attack ads): Iggy drinks at Starbucks, he’s elite…he’s not ONE OF DER VOLK.

What happens between now and then is irrelevant. Harper is playing chess, Wells an off-kay kazoo.

http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com bigcitylib

“Off-key” that is. Once more I am foiled by poor spelling.

http://members.shaw.ca/nspector4 Norman Spector

Another article worth noting from the same poll in the same paper (though you won’t read these numbers in the Gazette)

The francophone vote would bring the PQ to power
PQ 48 %, Liberals 31 %, ADQ à 9 %. 58 % dissatisfied with the government, 37 satisfied.

Paul Wells

Norman is having some trouble hauling his website back up to Stone Age levels of quality today, so I’ll jump in to point out that the party-preference numbers he cites are the subsample for francophone voters. Top-line voting intentions among all respondents were PLQ 40%, PQ 40%, ADQ 8%. The Charest Liberals’ decline “appears to have stopped,” the Le Devoir article reads. If you read it.

http://members.shaw.ca/nspector4 Norman Spector

Methought I had made clear that this was the franco breakout (The francophone vote would bring the PQ to power). And here’s what’s on my website today.

Quebec favours federal Liberals (Gaz)
Meanwhile, in Quebec City, Premier Jean Charest’s Liberals are neck and neck with Pauline Marois’s Parti Québécois. The Léger poll puts them both at 40 per cent. The Action démocratique du Québec is an also-ran at only eight per cent.
–Some important numbers the Gaz for some reason leaves out of its report
The francophone vote would bring the PQ to power
PQ 48 %, Liberals 31 %, ADQ 9 %. 58 % dissatisfied with the government, 37 satisfied.

sapphireandsteel

1996 Called, they want their web designer back.
Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

It doesn’t much matter, given that Charest has 42 months or so to govern.

Jean Proulx

I might be slightly worried if I was Jean Charest, but I’d be freakin’ terrified if I was Stephen Harper.
Anon

Won’t this have an impact on the Bloc numbers should there be a federal election? In other words, the Conservative collapse could help the Bloc in the francophone ridings, could it not?

Gene Rayburn

Seemingly no. In most cases, the Conservatives’ growth in support has been met vote-for-vote with a decrease in Liberal fortunes, suggesting that most of the Conservatives’ (formerly) new-found support is essentially just a reshuffling of federalists (who may very well just flip back to the Liberals at this point). Only the Conservatives’ gains in Quebec City buckle this trend.

http://www2.macleans.ca/category/blogs/national/inside-the-queensway/ Kady O'Malley

I can’t be the only one who is wildly impatient to see the next round of national numbers. A question, though: Does anyone recall how long it took for the Liberal numbers to start falling after the notaleader.ca launch? Or was it not until the Permanent Tax on Everything that the downward slide became official?

Anon

I don’t think Dion was ever ahead of the Bloc in Quebec. He may have been tied with the Conservatives province-wide, but he was always close to last among francophone voters, was he not?

Even in Ontario, I don’t remember a poll where he was better than tied with the Tories, or within the margin of error, at best.

http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com bigcitylib

Dion’s leadership numbers surely fell, but I don’t know that the horse-race/party pref. numbers ever really changed much until the actual election call.

http://myblahg.com Robert McClelland

The Liberal numbers peaked during their leadership convention and started falling before the notaleader ads but the herd gave the ads credit for the decline even though they had no discernible effect on the pre-writ numbers.
paulsstuff

I have yet to see one of the ads on tv other than news shows talking about it. I would think it’s premature of Well’s to put the Quebec numbers into the perspective of being affected by the ads.
wilson

For you Kady:

Tories hold slim poll lead as Liberal support falls back
By Janice Tibbetts,
Canwest News Service
May 25, 2009

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Tories+hold+slim+poll+lead+Liberal+support+falls+back/1629387/story.html

Ipsos Reid poll
Cons 35, Libs 33
Cons came from down 10 points to 2 points up in Ontario

”He attributed the Conservative climb in Canada’s most populous province — where the party captured 39 per cent support to the Liberals’ 37 per cent — to a slightly improving economy.”

http://www2.macleans.ca/category/blogs/national/inside-the-queensway/ Kady O'Malley

Interesting — although I’d love to see the MoE for the regional breakdowns.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

“So cheer up, Conservatives. The boss has a master plan to cut your party’s remaining Quebec support in half!”

If the numbers are cut in half because Harper stopped pandering to Quebec I don’t think that many Cons outside the prov would be all that bothered. Cons have done poorly in Quebec for a hundred years, not sure why Harper or journos expect that to turn around on a dime.

However, someone wrote last week, I forget who, that Harper appears to be trying traditional way of appealing to Quebecers: having dinners and highlighting all the MPs and Senators who bring all this wonderful pork spending to the prov.

Harper will a revolt on his hands from the Con base if he continues to pander to Quebec while having his support cut in half.

Gene Rayburn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1988

Pre-BQ of course, but we don’t need to look back 100 years to find a decent PC result in Quebec.
Jean Proulx

Is Harper “pandering” to Ontario by trying to save the auto industry? Is he “pandering” to Alberta by resisting pressure to set up either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme? Why is “pandering” reserved for Quebec?

Why is it always the language of confrontation? Of either “standing up” or “backing down”? Why this mentality that policies that benefit one part of the country necessarily come at the expense of other parts of the country? Is there any reason that Canadian politics always has to be so small and provincial? We really REALLY need a change of attitude in this country, and start rooting for each other instead of engaging in these petty little fits of jealousy and resentment.

Perry

The attack ads were a convenient way to explain away an unpopular leader. Attack ads cannot move numbers like we saw with the Dion collapse. They are primarily useful in voter suppression, which convinces people to either stay home or cast a protest vote. Rarely can an attack ad convert a Liberal into a Tory. – that is not their function.
Shawn Richardson

Be careful, even with these numbers the Bloc will still win a majority of the seats in Quebec because of their even distribution of votes. The Liberals win huge majorities in the Montreal region, and these results skew the bigger picture.
John W

The ads work partly because they win over the media more effectively than the average voter. This changes the agenda and news coverage and swings voters that way. It’s not immediate
The Conservatives use the ads to swing the agenda away from their own weaknesses, to the opposition’s weaknesses. Is Dion a leader? What about that accent? Can he communicate?
Is Ignatieff a real Canadian? Is he an out of touch elitist etc.? Is he here to stay?
The Iggy outsider, not a real Canadian, issue was off the radar until the ads began. Now it’s front and centre and eating up the newsprint and flooding the airwaves. He had, after all, won two local elections, conducted a losing leadership campaign, captured the leadership and crossed the country making speeches many times. Now it’s “just visiting” and the media loves it. The PMO is very happy with these results.

sapphireandsteel

What are you talking about? This has hardly been eating up the newsprint and flooding the airwaves. If anything, its been met with media criticism for what it is; a bigoted argument so weak it took the Conservatives two retakes to explain it and then it didnt have the takeaway message they hoped? The only people convinced by this are rubes who never wanted to do anything with their lives and now feel justified in criticizing everyone else. What’s next from the Conservative party? Is it going to be anti-Canadian to be literate? Maybe you’ll be less Canadian if you wear green on a Wednesday? Please!

John W

They don’t care if the media hates it and criticizes it, as long as they talk about it and play it for free which they have been doing at lot.
In case you didn’t notice, it’s been eating up a lot blog space on Macleans’.ca. And “rubes” vote.
But as I said, they have changed the topics of discussion everywhere.
Sure EI still top story, but a lot of little nagging issues, even the reactor going down have been pushed aside a bit.

Mike T.

Gee, who would have thought an ad about how its bad to be different from pre-conceived notions of “Canadian” would play poorly in Quebec? :)

Shawn Richardson

That’s because the French ad is totally different, and mocks his French (from France) accent in French.

Will

It’s not totally different. The main message is the same but it also says he speaks French with a French accent.

Blair C

Wow, what a mean spirited jab at Harper. I guess this is gotcha journalism.

Not too insightful really, I mean, Harper just won an election without much support from Quebec. And ‘Iggy’ is vulnerable on being a Yank. ‘Har-vard’ looks good on your CV if you’re ‘upper crust’ – that’s not 99% of Canadians, so good luck to Iggy with that.

sapphireandsteel

Hey do you still keep your banjo in the back of that old abandoned truck on your property?

Bert

A harp I say a harp. Lol

Rob

Imagine that? Canadians want a cultured, well educated person to run the country! Who wouldnt after three years of having a bunch of juvinile career political hacks running amok in our nations capitol.

Bert

Good luck in trying to find that person. Maybe if we still had insane asylums. mmmmmmmmmmm.

dan in van

So wayne is now bert? And what happened to Ernie and the whining baby? Time to call in Sheila Fraser…

Orson Bean

Yes, there are no juvenile political hacks in the Liberal Party, that’s fer sure . . . (uncomfortable silence while we clear our throat and hope nobody mentions Warren Kinsella)

Bill Simpson

Are they running these ads in Quebec to any extent? I would have thought that the ads were more directed at Ontario and the west.

catherine

Well, that would explain it, if the attack ad in French about Ignatieff speaking French with an accent ‘de France’ was really meant for an audience in the west.
http://deleted Sandi

Actually, Harper insults Ontario in the ads – he’s making it a negative to like Algonquin Park in Northern Ontario.

What’s wrong with liking a beautiful park, wildlife, rugged nature, family camping, etc.? What’s wrong with it for Harper is that Ignatieff likes a park in Ontario.

Michael

The problem for Harper is that Ignatieff didn’t say “What I really miss is the tar sands.”

Will

I love how when I took the Hebert article into google translate, it turned “L’ ADQ” into “The BBQ”

MJ Patchouli

Mmm, just the smell of those char-broiled conservatives makes my mouth water…who’s got the sauce?

Canuckistanian

i call dibs on Van Loan; he’s well marbled ;-)

Jay

Quebec is just a cancer to the rest of the country!

Shawn Richardson

If it wasn’t for Quebec, you’d have a majority Harper government. Sound like something you’d like to have? If yes, why don’t you separate.

Funny that the Quebec bashers haven’t made much noise about Quebec’s economy doing better than the Canadian average for the past year.

http://www.chuckercanuck.blogspot.com chuckercanuck

And what part of Quebec is doing best? Quebec City and its environs!

Jean Proulx

Oh for crying out loud.
Austin So

Quebec is a cancer like this?

http://www.dermis.net/bilder/CD197/550px/img0007.jpg

To the rest of the country like this?

http://new-wavepr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/tailing3.jpg
jay

All I am going to say is I have no time for Bloc, and the many Quebecers who want to destory this country! I could careless about the whole who’s province is better than the other. Why the hell should any party have to but Quebec above any other province!

chuckercanuck

Hi Paul,

Stephen Harper is no Bryan Mulroney – how the CPC fairs post-him matters to him.

We have to build up the ADQ and the CPC alliance. The LPQ is not reliable (la donna e mobile!)

Also, with your ADQ at 8% comment, I’ll just add that the CPC moves up from the ADQ because it has a higher floor among anglophones. So the top line comparison is a little misleading unless you argue that the ADQ should be doing better outreach into anglo communiities. (It would if it became a federalist party which at least one contender to replace Mario has been arguing).

keith c

yep, good comments. as lackluster and sometimes disipiriting as the execution has been in the last 12 months, this pool of blue votes exists in Quebec and it’s worth it for Harper and the Adequistes to persevere and find the messages that resonate, if only in the Quebec City region. Housakos organized a pretty successful fundraiser, with twice as much attendance as predicted. Quebec will never be the core Tory vote it was under Mulroney but that doesn’t mean that a bleu tribe couldn’t be built over time, not unlike the Maritimes where the Tories get a third of the seats.

Mulletaur

Harper cannot fulfil his ambition of a majority government without winning in Quebec, and clearly that isn’t going to happen any time soon, so why does he bother ? More importantly, why do the rest of Conservative MP’s continue to follow him like lemmings over a political cliff ?
Critical Reasoning

The Tories can probably hang on to Beauce and a few other Quebec ridings. Harper’s many missteps in Quebec will probably cause the Conservatives to lose six or seven seats in the province, but it won’t be enough to change the outcome of the next federal election.

Jean Proulx

Not by themselves they won’t, but you may have noticed that Con numbers are also down in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, and show signs of softening in parts of B.C.

Also Harper might conceivably win another election with these horrific QC numbers, but any dreams of a majority are decisively crushed.

Critical Reasoning

I assume the Bloc will now be aiming most of their heavy artillery at the Liberals. I wonder if the Bloc will succeed where the Tories failed.

Jean Proulx

- The sponsorship scandal has passed its expiration date.

- Ignatieff is not associated with the Trudeau-Chrétien-Dion hardline federalist wing of the Liberals.

- Quebecers don’t have a problem with his cosmopolitanism.

Not sure what kind of ammunition the BQ has. And they essentially remain a powerless protest party that always have to justify their continued existence..

I predict that Ignatieff will do at least as well as Chrétien did in 2000 when the Liberals beat the Bloc in the popular vote and essentially tied with them in number of seats.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

You know, it occurs to me that, pol for pol, our pols have to work a hell of a lot harder than the Americans’, say, or the Brits’. One strategy for Quebec, one for the West, possibly a separate one for BC, an eye on the Ontario sensibility (whatever that is exactly), and many a blown kiss to Atlantic Canada, God knows.

I’m trying to remember the last time a party appealed to all regions of the country simultaneously, without profiting from some gimmick like vote-splitting. Mulroney 1984 or 1988?

Critical Reasoning

You’re right – Mulroney was the last PM who experienced strong voter support from every region (particularly in 1984).

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

21 or 25 years ago. That’s 15% or 18% of the lifespan of the country.

madeyoulook

Wouldn’t it be nice if a FEDERAL GOVERNMENT would actually work at just plain governing the entire country, instead of engaging in all this ridiculous regional tinkering.

Mulletaur

Two possible visions could serve such a strategy : pan-Canadianism and regionalism. Every leader since Diefenbaker has kept more or less with a pan-Canadian vision except for a brief period under Clark and, of course, Harper, who is trying to define a post-Trudeau federation. He is failing – no, he has already failed given these Quebec poll numbers. Iggy represents a return to a pan-Canadian vision of our federation.

Canuckistanian

“Iggy represents a return to a pan-Canadian vision of our federation.” Now that he has a book to flog ;-)

Chuck VS Macleans

This poll was conducted May 13 -17, the first ads started rolling out may 16. Wow, why would the ads have any effect on this poll?

You would have to really be reaching to come to the conclusion that these ads had any effect on this poll one way or the other. I am not saying the numbers are good for the CPC, but WTF would the tory ads have on this poll negatiive or positive?

Your hate is showing Wells.

Critical Reasoning

I thought the TV ads started rolling out on May 13. I could be wrong, though.

Chuck VS Macleans

The leak was May 13, I think(I just checked Wells post on the ads it looks like May 14 was the first day of roll out). Either way the ads would have no effect on this poll.

It looks like this was more of a post to bash Dimitri and Leo, with a lame jokes. It just hard to take Paul seriously when the guy could not even get right how many times Harper had been to afghanistan.

Paul Wells

You’re none too bright, Chuck.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/politique-canadienne/200905/13/01-856159-les-conservateurs-lancent-une-offensive-publicitaire-contre-ignatieff.php

Chuck VS Macleans

Ya, I went back and read your post when the ads first came out, I was wrong, fair is fair.

I still don’t believe the ads would effect these numbers. As to being “none too bright”, what can I say, I am what I am.