Liberals Should Address Quebec

If you want to pinpoint the recent Liberal lag in the polls, Quebec is the region that draws my attention. The latest EKOS poll comes on the heels of this week's Harris Decima offering, confirming a new bottom for the Liberal in Quebec. I don't sense much urgency, but the fact of the matter, numbers have been eroding for months and have now reached a critical state.

First the national numbers:

Conservatives: 31.9 (+0.2)
Liberals: 26.6 (-0.5)
NDP: 17.6 (+1.3)
Green: 10.9 (-1.7)
Bloc Quebecois: 9.7 (+0.2) (38.5 in Quebec (+0.1))
Other: 3.3 (+0.6)

Interesting, the Libs are back to 2008 election levels, but the Cons are a full 6% below their tally. And, although the NDP are showing signs of rebound, they are just shy of 2008 levels. I'd hardly fear the big blue machine, garnering 32% and 29% in polling this week, and one has to wonder why they aren't capitalizing on Lib weakness(of course the reverse is true as well). There is nothing here to justify Con bravado, we're at Dion levels and they are down considerably.

The Quebec numbers:

Quebec (MoE 4.40)
Bloc Quebecois 38.5 (+0.1)
Liberals: 19.3 (-3.4)
Conservatives: 16.0 (+2.2)
NDP: 12.6 (+2.8)
Green: 10.4 (-1.6)
Other: 3.1 (-0.3)

As Kady points out, the first time the Libs have fallen below 20% support in AGES. More concerning, this poll isn't a one off, we've seen consistent erosion from others and the trending is clear. I'm not reacting to this result, I put my Quebec concerns to a few people at the Thinkers Conference and wasn't overly moved by the lack of urgency. To be fair, I believe Quebec will largely be a campaign consideration, but at the same time I can't say I denote a coherent strategy. People will note, that the Bloc score is stagnant here, other federalist parties benefit, which suggests a ceiling does exist.

On the leadership front, although Ignatieff's numbers are dreadful, Harper's are concerning, with a much more rigid feel. Layton does well, part merit I suppose, but equally a by-product of after thought considerations.

I've been pretty impressed by the policy thrust we've seen recently. Although the announcements haven't garnered considerable attention, they will serve the rebrand well moving forward. That said, we clearly need an aggressive strategy in Quebec, Ignatieff needs to do another round of television/media interactions, a more visible presence, because part of this drip, drip, drip is a lack of catalysts.