MPs are on the way back to Ottawa this weekend after a week in their ridings. Work in the House of Commons and in committees gets underway Monday.
On the eve of their return, The Toronto Star is out with some new numbers from its pollster Angus Reid. For this poll, survey respondents would have digested news about the RCMP raids of Conservative headquarters and, though the Star piece doesn't mention this, the live-on-TV arrest of a former Liberal official in Québec . So voters had some RCMP action from both parties to consider as they told Angus Reid pollsters which way they were leaning. The end result? Conservatives are still leading in the national sample of 1,001 voters with 33 per cent of respondents saying they'd vote Harper's team. But that's down three percentage points since Angus Reid was last in the field in early April. The Liberals are up four points to 30 per cent.
When it comes to the who's-a-better-leader type of questions, poll respondents overwhelmingly picked Harper over Dion on all characteristics but one: When asked which leader they rated as honest and trustworthy, Dion was picked by 38 per cent; Harper by 33 per cent. And 58 per cent of those polled say the credibility of the Conservatives had been damaged by the RCMP raids.
Many Liberals I spoke to before the break had been worried that possibility of more arrests in Montreal in connection with the sponsorship scandal wouldn't be such a great thing if they were to hit the hustings this spring. But almost as many thought that this spring would be their last, best chance to force an election on their own terms and the Elections Canada investigation might be just the thing for that.
Susan Delacourt, in her reporting on this poll, sounds a note of caution for election-hungry Liberals:
Despite all this bad news for the Tories, however, the poll does not provide any strong encouragement to Liberals to provoke a snap election when the Commons returns Monday after a one-week break. A strong 50 per cent of those polled disagree with having the opposition trigger an early election.
While the Tories are hovering below the 36 per cent popular support they received in the 2006 election, the Liberals are stuck at the same 30 per cent they had in that vote, which saw the end of their 12 years in power. The New Democrats stand at 20 per cent, the Greens at 8 per cent and the Bloc Québécois is at 30 per cent in Quebec.