OTTAWA — A new poll suggests the federal Conservatives continue to hold a healthy lead over the Liberals, but remain well shy of majority territory.

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey put the Tories at 35 per cent nationally, compared with 28 per cent for the Liberals.

The NDP was at 15 per cent, while the Greens and Bloc Quebecois were tied at 10 per cent.

The Conservatives jumped to a four-point lead in Ontario with 40 per cent support, and they continued to dominate in the West.

However, the Tories trailed badly in Quebec at just 15 per cent — nine points back of the Liberals and 26 points behind the Bloc.

The Liberals were ahead in only one region — Atlantic Canada — where they led the Tories by three percentage points and the NDP by five.

The telephone poll of just over 2,000 people was conducted Oct. 1-12 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

While I accept of course that there are some genuine supporters of the Green Party, my own albeit unscientific experience in talking to people, especially younger people, is that many support the Green Party because it is "not one of the traditional parties". Sometimes it is because of a general sense of support for the environment (whatever that means in practical terms), but just as often it is because of frustration with the existing status quo. These are also people least likely to vote.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe…
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey put the Tories at 35 per cent nationally, compared with 28 per cent for the Liberals.

The NDP was at 15 per cent, while the Greens and Bloc Quebecois were tied at 10 per cent.

The Conservatives jumped to a four-point lead in Ontario with 40 per cent support, and they continued to dominate in the West.

However, the Tories trailed badly in Quebec at just 15 per cent — nine points back of the Liberals and 26 points behind the Bloc

ETA: Never mind, found it! It was in the CBC tables, not the EKOS file.

It'll be back to dead even before the month's out.

It'll be back to dead even before the month's out.

Bottom line is that he's still auditioning for the role of Opposition Leader. His advisors still haven't figured out that he SHOULD be auditioning for the role of PM. So, for example, leave the "bodybag" criticisms to the appropriate critics.

Perhaps in days of old, the prospect of being given government money caused these folks to donate more generously to campaigns, and to work harder to get their servants and workers out to vote.

Now that elites are limited in what they can contribute (without getting caught), one wonders if the whole novelty cheque business might be en route to becoming an obsolete part of our political-electoral culture.

Or is there some other reason for politicians to suck up to elites with novelty cheques, now that they can't deliver much by way of cash for elections?

Absolutely! The federal conservatives even help out the provincial libs come election time. At least, most of their volunteers are the same.

I'd be a-okay with the provincial Libs changing their name to better reflect their politics.

I still think everybody, particularly the media has been missing the point the last 5 years. Now with a unified Conservative Party, things are returning to their historical norms in English Canada. For all the talk of leadership problems, the Liberals aren't really performing any worse in English Canada than they did under Pearson, Trudeau (except for '68) or Turner.

Not that it's a good thing, mind you – they're not winning practically every seat in Quebec like they did under Trudeau. But we need to stop treating this period in our history as some kind of abberation caused by weak Liberal leadership.

Marked cards , signals to cohorts etc are mere partisan sniping . Lets have an election on the issues if Iggy can find them .

LOUD NOISES!

Anyway you look at it, it's bad news for Libs. "

How is that bad news for the Liberals? The Liberals finished well behind the NDP in all 4 Canadian provinces last time. Same with a lot of portions of Ontario as well (I suspect if you take 416/905 out of the mix, the NDP received more votes than the Liberals, though I haven't done the math myself)

This week's numbers leapt out at me because it was considerably higher than it has been for the last few months — I'd have to go back and check, but it may be at its highest since EKOS started doing weeklies — but again, it's not clear whether that has any wider implications. I do wish there was some sort of standard format for presenting polling data that all firms and media outlets would respect. In my dream, it would involve full province-by-province breakdowns, not just "the west" or "Atlantic Canada", smaller sample sizes be damned, as well as daily results and past voter preference, but let's face it, that's never going to happen.

Anyway you look at it, it's bad news for Libs.