Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party has edged into first place in Quebec, buoyed by the divisive debate over Muslim women wearing niqabs, according to a new public opinion poll.

The latest EKOS Research poll, conducted earlier this week, found the Conservatives in the lead with the support of 28 per cent of respondents compared with 25 per cent for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and 24 per cent for Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats.

The difference between the three parties is within the poll’s margin of error of 4.9 percentage points for the Quebec level results.

Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Québécois is trailing at 17 per cent, while Elizabeth May’s Green Party is at 4 per cent.



However, the province-wide numbers don’t tell the full story.

“There are very different micro-regional races going on in Quebec,” said Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research. “The overall numbers will not reveal what is going to happen. You have to start breaking it down into some of the micro-regions to really get a feel for what is happening.

“For example, the most obvious is (that) what is happening in Quebec City really is quite different from what is happening in other parts of the province, although now I think that effect is moving out more broadly into the south and the north and other rural or less urbanized areas of Quebec.”

That rise for the Conservatives has been coming at the expense of the NDP, which has dropped to second place in the Quebec City area.

While the federal election started out as a debate about the economy in Quebec’s seat-rich regions, Graves says the debate is now about values, identity and the niqab — the veil worn by some Muslim women that covers the lower half of their face.

“The Conservatives are doing very well in those areas (of the province) and this niqab stuff is selling big time,” said Graves. “The dog whistles are definitely working. It is as impressive as it is depressing.”

While it was the Bloc Québécois that helped inject the question of identity politics into the campaign with ads featuring a niqab, Graves said it’s the Conservatives that are benefitting from it with their anti-niqab stance.

“The Bloc may actually be helping the Conservatives,” he said.

If the trend continues, it could mean 25 or more seats for the Conservatives in Quebec, Graves said.

Going into the election, the Conservative had only five seats in Quebec – all but one in areas just outside of Quebec City.

In the Montreal area, it is a very different battle, said Graves. There, the fight is principally between the NDP and the Liberals, with the NDP still slightly in the lead.

“The NDP is still doing well in the Outaouais, the Monteregie, they’re very competitive on the island and Laval and in the West Island they are very much in the race.

“They’re in the race in most places but what was going to be a runaway matching or eclipsing their performance in 2011 now doesn’t appear to be happening.”

In 2011, the NDP’s Orange Wave swept over Quebec, giving it 59 of Quebec’s 75 seats in the last Parliament and nearly 43 per cent of the vote. The Liberals won seven seats and the Bloc was relegated to four seats.

The Bloc Québécois isn’t doing much better in this election than it did in 2011, Graves said.

“I don’t see the Bloc going anywhere. They’re lower at this point than they were at this stage in 2011.”

However, with less than two weeks to go before voters go to the polls, things could still change, said Graves.

“I really have no idea how this is going to play out. But we’re getting close to the finish line – not much more room for twists and turns.”

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