Apolitical Staples

Commenters referenced the latest La Presse-CROP poll in the discussion on the latest Decima poll. Here are the numbers (Quebec only)

Bloc Quebecois: 28%
Conservatives: 26%
Liberals: 22%
New Democrats: 17%

All of this has L. Ian MacDonald thinking that the NDP goal of electing someone in Quebec in a general election is not as crazy as you might think.

...This confirms the findings of an SES Research poll last month, that in the hypothetical situation of the Bloc being off the federal ballot, the Conservatives and NDP would divide up most of that vote. Or as SES president Nik Nanos puts it: "Everyone benefits except the Liberals."
This makes a great deal of sense.
Just as in the provincial campaign, there were disillusioned PQ supporters who could never vote Liberal and found their way to the ADQ on the right and Quebec solidaire on the left, so there are "tired" Bloc voters who would never vote for les rouges, and gravitate to les bleus. But there's also a leftist segment of the Bloc vote, especially in the Greater Montreal area, that would be more at home with the NDP than the Conservatives. These voters, like the NDP, strongly oppose the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, and strongly support same-sex marriage.
In the SES hypothetical of the Bloc being off the federal ballot, the Conservatives surged to 41 per cent, the NDP to 23 per cent, while the Liberals were at 21 per cent. In other words, the disappearance of the Bloc from the federal scene would not benefit the Liberals. This would be the reverse of the Liberals having been the sole beneficiaries, among the federalist parties, of the polarization caused by the Bloc in the four elections between 1993 and 2004.