It’s well short of a wave, but the NDP seems to be the only thing moving in an otherwise frozen polling landscape.

Whether this new Orange Hiccup will develop into anything more impressive remains to be seen but the New Democrats have risen from the depths of the high teens to 22 points. And there’s evidence they may be doing a bit better than that; our live interviewer test shows that they receive more of the Bloc vote than is recorded by our automated polling system.

Otherwise, all seems pretty stable since last week. There are, however, a few trends to watch — and we get the sense that this current climate of polling stability has the potential for swift and significant change.

A relatively disengaged electorate is responding to the security issue — probably without paying close attention. Polls reporting vast majority support for Bill C-51 should be treated with caution for a variety of reasons. The campaign period could yield a different optic, as could the grim impacts of a stagnant economy which likely will continue to cool.

Canadians may be parking the smugness they felt about how our economy performed immediately following the 2008 market meltdown. They’ve been watching the U.S. economy growing at double the rate of Canada’s, while enjoying significantly lower unemployment. They’ve started feeling the slide in the Canadian dollar in produce prices and the cost of travel.

Regional races remain tight outside of Alberta and the Atlantic. The NDP has opened up a small lead in Quebec, while the Bloc Québécois has faded slightly. This Quebec race, reshaped by the prominence of the terror and culture files, has seen Harper moving from baked to very much alive, particularly in the Quebec City area.

Quebec is the most unpredictable of the current races and could hold the key to who wins Election 42. But Quebec’s impact on the federal election is clouded by its voters’ very loose levels of engagement; Quebecers are currently the Canadians least likely to say they’re certain to vote. The current message blend being delivered by the Harper government in Quebec — terrorism and nativism — may turn out to be a very unstable compound.

Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, will have to improve his relatively poor performance with francophone Quebecers (he leads handily with anglophone and allophone populations) if he’s to have a shot at power. Right now, the view from the ground in Quebec is of a dynamic, shifting race, with four competitive parties staking out different regions and demographics.

The older and less educated you are, the more you like Stephen Harper and his new emphasis on terrorism. It helps to be male as well. The Liberals continue to do very well with new Canadians — who, for the Conservatives, may have been a political casualty of Mr. Harper’s public comments about the niqab.

Satisfaction with broad national direction appears to be on a downward trend. This may well be linked to the economy. The risk for Mr. Harper is that — while terrorism and identity politics may have a limited shelf life as an exaggerated depiction of the threat is tempered by experience — the state of the economy is an issue which isn’t going away; less than one in five Canadians now feel they are doing better than they were the year before. We suspect that, barring a very high-profile terror episode, the economy will matter more to Canadians when they cast their votes. (Spring election, anyone?)

This week, we asked Canadians to rate each of the three party leaders’ plans along three separate dimensions: clarity, impact on the country as a whole and impact on the individual respondent. In terms of clarity, Mr. Harper comes out with a clear advantage, which is likely a reflection of his aggressive ad campaigns and his release of specific measures in recent months. In terms of the merits of each plan for improving the country and the individual respondent, Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau find themselves in a dead heat, with responses largely divided along party lines.

These questions will be more useful as tracking items and it will be interesting to watch as the opposition parties gradually unveil their platforms over the coming months. The mere fact that Mr. Trudeau has been able to keep pace with Mr. Harper — despite relative silence on the Liberal front, at least compared to the Conservatives’ endless carpet-bombing campaign of ads and pronouncements — is actually rather impressive. Even dominating the airwaves, the best that Mr. Harper has been able to achieve so far is a tie. This must be troubling to the Conservative party, given that the momentum the PM has isn’t likely to last as mounting anxieties over the economy begin to eclipse security concerns.

Finally, we asked Canadians who they believe will win the next federal election. Once again, the Liberals and Conservatives find themselves in a tie, with roughly equal numbers of Canadians predicting a Liberal victory or another Conservative win. In either case, Canadians seem fairly confident that we will be looking at a minority government. These results reaffirm the closeness of the race and the folly of making any forecasts at this time.

Frank Graves is founder and president of EKOS Polling.

This study was conducted using High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator. In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households.

The field dates for this survey were February 18-24, 2015. In total, a random sample of 3,607 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-1.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, region, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.