The Ekos polling numbers

I have not been worrying too much about the polls federally because there has not been much movement that would indicate anyone might want an election, but the latest Ekos poll changes that.  The Conservatives have a 9.3 point lead over the Liberals.

Ekos has only shown a mild rise in Conservative support since the end of December going from a low of 30.9% to 34.4% now.   The bigger change has been with the Liberals who peaked at 31.9% with Ekos polling, they now sit at 25.1%, their lowest result with Ekos since the end of 2008.   The NDP is down a bit from the last couple of Ekos polls, but right in their 15-16% range that Ekos so often finds them.

The Bloc is riding high with their highest Ekos result in the latest poll with 10.6%, not the first above 10% lately for them.

The Greens have been getting some good numbers with Ekos of late, their 12% number is significantly high for them.  Worrying for the NDP should be that the Greens are not far behind them in Ontario and leading them in Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa.

Looking at these results and I see a minimal change in seats west of Quebec, the changes would be the marginal ones from the last election that could have gone either way then.  I see a couple of western Conservative seats going Liberal and some Ontario Liberal seats going Conservative.

It is in Quebec that this poll shows the biggest change, the Conservative could face the loss of most of their seats if their numbers are really at 14.7% in Quebec.   The losses in Quebec would not be made by the marginal gains in Atlantic Canada.

So on the basis of this one Ekos poll:

• Conservatives - 139
• Liberals - 74
• NDP - 36
• Bloc - 58
• Ind - 1

The numbers are still not good enough to make it worth Harper's time to call an election at this time.