"Harper surging in Quebec" may be four of the most unexpected words strung together in this election campaign.

The National Post headline was printed a week ago after polls indicated a Conservative advance in the province, even a lead in one case.

The findings raised several skeptical eyebrows here, but were just as soon eclipsed by the next spike, this one for the Liberals. These sudden ups and downs are dizzying, but they also mark the fact that the campaign has entered the unknown in Quebec.

For the first third of this campaign, the province was the sea of orange it has been for quite some time, and close to a sure thing for the NDP. But now, three days from e-day, Quebec appears to be a patchwork of voter intention not seen in close to 50 years.

Since 1968, through Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Lucien Bouchard, Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton, Quebecers have typically voted en masse for one party, for one strong voice, often in opposition, to make its will known in Ottawa. But maybe not this time.

According to CBC's Poll Tracker, Quebec is seeing a four-way split: the NDP still leads with almost 30 per cent support, the Liberals follow closely with 28, then the Bloc at 20 and the Conservatives at 19.

It is a split that helps explain why all three of the main federal leaders essentially spent the day in Quebec yesterday, shoring up their local candidates and making forays into each other's turf.

Short of a startling late-hour surge — never to be ruled out here — Quebec could well be sending MPs from four parties to Ottawa after Oct. 19.

Quebec values

The NDP's hold on the province began to slip just after Labour Day, arguably when many Quebecers began to pay attention to the election.

Countless reasons have been enlisted for the slide, from Tom Mulcair's occasionally arrogant demeanour to, if you can believe it, his party's position on abolishing the Senate, seen by some as a way for Quebec to lose clout in Ottawa.

Quebec voted overwhelmingly for the NDP in the 2011 election, but as Nancy Wood reports, many don't know what to expect in the province this time around 2:47

The NDP pledge to balance the budget may not have helped it either in a province already constrained by provincial austerity measures.

But the biggest tumble was clearly triggered by the joint Bloc-Conservative anti-niqab campaign that took off just before the first of the two French-language debates on Sept. 24.

However widely decried as divisive bogeyman politics, anti-niqab sentiment is common ground in Quebec.

In fact, Quebecers have been wrestling with the issue of religious accommodation for years, from the 2007 Bouchard-Taylor Commission through to the PQ's failed charter of values last year.

It has been a fraught and painfully divisive debate, which left rights intact but a legacy of mistrust around anything but the secular in the public sphere.

That's a consensus that leaves Mulcair on the outs and puts Conservative Leader Stephen Harper onside with Quebecers, making the province the only place in the country where the Conservatives can hope to make gains, possibly even doubling their five seats here, some have suggested.

Stop Harper Central

There's always been a small-c conservative strain in Quebec, but in recent years the province has also been Stop Harper Central.

"Whether on gay marriage, abortion, or doctor assisted death, you're completely out of it when it comes to Quebec values," Justin Trudeau said to Harper during the last French-language debate, effectively making the point that the Quebec vote is mostly progressive.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau makes a pizza while campaigning last week. Divide it in four and that could be the result in Quebec come Monday. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

And it's that portion of the electorate that the remaining three parties will be divvying up, a splintering that makes for an extremely unpredictable outcome.

The Liberals are well entrenched in and around Montreal and may well retrieve seats that were swallowed up in the Orange Wave of 2011.

Beyond that is anyone's guess, but their end-of-campaign momentum, along with Trudeau's generally well-regarded appearance on the opinion-making TV talk show Tout le monde en parle last week, have propelled the Liberals into a close second, behind the NDP.

The Liberals' planned deficit spending is welcome here. And they want to legalize pot, a crowd pleaser that Mulcair matched on Tuesday.

For Mulcair, who has banked on a solid Quebec base to make gains elsewhere in the country, the problem has been trying to take on the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois on the progressive front in Montreal while also battling the Conservatives and the sometimes more socially conservative Bloc in the rest of Quebec.

Gilles Duceppe's return to lead the Bloc was seen as a move that would only further fragment the progressive vote, and that's exactly what it's done.

Duceppe's own seat is no sure thing, but the Bloc now looks like it might regain seats from this four-way split, though probably not nearly enough to make it a big player in the province again.

Except perhaps in one respect.

Along with Trudeau and Mulcair, Duceppe has clearly stated he would refuse to support a minority Conservative government.

There may no longer be a one party that speaks for the province, but, at least in this respect, there would still be common cause.