Ekos has released a new poll today with data from after the release of the Jean Brault testimony. The results are devistating to the Liberals.
Conservatives: 36%
Liberals: 25%
NDP: 21%
Bloc Quebecois: 13%
Looks like the electorate have spoken and they are demanding an election. This Parliament may not last the week.
Here is how the Toronto Star reports the story (Hat-tips to the Shotgun and NealeNews).
...Conservative Leader Stephen Harper would become prime minister if an election were held today, according to a new Toronto Star poll.
The poll, conducted by EKOS Research Associates, shows the federal Liberals are in a dramatic freefall, even in their usual Ontario stronghold.
...In Ontario, the Conservatives now lead with 40 per cent of the vote. The Liberals are at 33 per cent. Prime Minister Paul Martin escaped the indignity of losing the government last year when the party won 74 of the 106 seats in Ontario.
It's not just the sponsorship revelations dragging the federal Liberals down in Canada's biggest province, but also the so-called "fair-share" campaign that has pitted Premier Dalton McGuinty's provincial government against Martin's Liberals.
According to Frank Graves, president of EKOS, last week's scandal revelations only "lit the fuse, igniting resentment over fair-share treatment and ultimately producing a Liberal implosion in Ontario."
Graves calls it "a breathtaking shift in what had been a stagnant and listless political landscape" — a shift, which seems
to have taken place since Brault rocked the political world late last week with tales of forced kickbacks and payoffs to the Liberal party.
Update: There is quite of bit of video on the matter at the CTV website and Reuters is reporting that the Government will last another month.
...Canada's main opposition party is unlikely to let the minority Liberal government survive more than a month, senior Conservatives said on Monday.
Suddenly energized by a new poll that shows Liberal support in a freefall because of dramatic allegations of kickbacks from a federal spending program, the Conservatives are now looking at when, not whether, to pull the plug on the government.
"There's a window of three to four weeks," one Conservative strategist, who did not wish to be identified, told Reuters.
That would suggest an attempt to bring down the government in the first week, or possibly the first two weeks, of May, though senior Conservatives said nothing had been decided.
Update II: Chantal Hebert agrees with Mike Brock's election timing prediction.
...Harper may be well advised to keep his powder dry until Victoria Day.
The poll suggests that most voters want to know more about the sponsorship scandal before they go back to the polls. As it happens, by the end of May, Justice John Gomery will have exhausted his witness list.
In British Columbia, a provincial election slated for May 17 will also have come and gone. In a competitive election campaign, that province would be second only to Ontario as a major battlefront.
And then, the Conservatives have no incentive in forcing the cancellation of the Queen's visit to the Prairies next month.
