“It’s been a good week for the NDP, with major gains in the Lower Mainland,” said Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research. “(The NDP) now hold a 16-point lead over the Liberals in what is a crucial battleground in the election.”

The Mainstreet/Postmedia poll was conducted April 20 to 22, just after the leaders’ radio debate last Thursday. Until then, support for the two parties had remained consistently close at roughly 39 per cent for the NDP and 37 per cent for the Liberals.

But over the last few days of campaigning the NDP appear to have surged, with 44 per cent support among decided voters, compared to just 34 per cent for the Liberals. Green support has climbed slightly to 22 per cent.

In Metro Vancouver, home to more than half of B.C.’s ridings, the NDP’s lead over the Liberals is now even higher — a whopping 16 points.

However, predicting the outcome of the election at this point is impossible, Maggi said, because the gap between the three parties is more narrow in the rest of the province. On Vancouver Island, the NDP and Greens are largely tied, with the Liberals 10 points behind; outside the Island and Metro, the Liberals and NDP are tied, with the the Greens trailing behind.

“Even though the lead for the NDP has increased, we still see the Liberals (strong) in the rest of B.C., and we still know that among South Asians and among the Chinese population it breaks much more towards B.C. Liberals on economic policy. So we can’t discount those things, even with that size of the lead at this point,” Maggi said in a telephone interview.

“This one is going to be tough to call right to the end … It seems to be a see-saw battle.”