CAP-AUX-MEULES/ÎLES-DE-LA-MADELEINE—On election night 2011, it is on the tiny archipelago of the Magdalen Islands — a 12-hour boat ride from mainland Quebec and one time zone ahead of the rest of the province — that the orange wave first washed ashore.

After those initial Quebec results came in, everyone knew that the NDP sweep forecast in the polls was on.

Four years later it is as good a place as any to spot a different second orange wave in the making. This one is propelled not so much by undying affection for Thomas Mulcair or by a deeper ideological attachment to the NDP but by an overwhelming collective desire to effect regime change in Parliament on Oct. 19.

Over the past five days, most people I have spoken to — be they local or part of the horde of Quebec tourists enjoying the summer in the area — have mentioned the ongoing federal campaign. In almost every instance that was unprompted. That’s not totally par for the course as Quebecers usually tend to be less engaged in federal campaigns than average.

Not a single person referred to Stephen Harper’s travails with the Senate and the testimony that has plunged his closest aides deeper in the scandal surrounding the Prime Minister’s Office’s handling of Sen. Mike Duffy’s expenses.

That’s as good as it gets for the Conservatives, for almost to a man and a woman the Quebec voters I ran across volunteered their fervent wish to see Harper defeated next October.

That includes more than a few parents of younger children — the very people who were showered with child-benefit money as part of what the Harper government unsubtly described as Christmas in July.

This year the discreet voters in Quebec — and possibly elsewhere — will tend to be Conservative supporters.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe and PQ Leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau visited the islands last week just ahead of the latter’s celebrity wedding. But beyond that the Bloc campaign is invisible on the ground and absent from the radar of most voters.

Those who did mention Duceppe’s unexpected return to active politics were either sorry that he came back because they believe he will again be defeated or were just annoyed at what they saw as a distraction from the main event of beating the Conservatives.

Liberal candidate Diane Lebouthillier has campaign signs all over the archipelago but most of the members of the Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine Liberal riding executive resigned a few weeks ago in protest over the party’s handling of her nomination.

They now support NDP incumbent Philip Toone. He too has signs on most road shoulders.

Jean-Pierre Pigeon — the Conservative candidate — is a veteran party member who says his political idol is former prime minister Brian Mulroney. In a local radio interview this week, he abstained from defending the Conservative record. Instead, his message boils down to telling voters that they would do better with more Quebecers at the government table.

That’s the recurring theme of the Conservative narrative in Quebec. With every poll showing Harper running second or even third nationally it becomes a weaker argument.

Besides, Quebec has been sending a majority of opposition members to Parliament for almost 25 years.

By picking a fight with Mulcair over the rules of a possible Quebec referendum at the first leaders debate, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau may have scored against his opposition rival outside Quebec but in this province, he probably sent more voters to the New Democrats — and not just those of the sovereigntist persuasion.

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Most Quebec federalists are under no delusion that even a narrow victory for sovereignty would wreak havoc in the province and many would rather support the party best placed to keep the BQ down than a party that offers them the cold comfort of promising to deny a narrow pro-secession vote. There is a tendency in Quebec for federalists to coalesce behind the strongest pro-Canada party on offer.

As a result, CROP reports that the Liberals now lag 27 points behind the NDP. With numbers like that, Trudeau will have to fight hard just to hang on to the handful of Montreal seats that he inherited from Michael Ignatieff. Here on the Magdalen Islands, his name never came up.

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