The only thing hot about Canada right now is the dead heat capturing the political landscape. There are some movements, but they are more of the twitch variety than structural movements. At the fringes, the electorate seems to be lurching around like a drunken monkey, but the new normal of a deadlocked Conservative/Liberal race seems to be a stable undercurrent.

The Conservatives and Liberals are in a statistical tie at thirty two points each, with the NDP trailing at 18.

Surprising — and probably overstated — Bloc Québécois strength in Quebec is forcing a remarkable four-way tie in that province. The dead heat theme continues in Ontario, the other key arena, where a virtual tie exists — as it does in Manitoba, but with a smaller sample base. The Liberals own the East and the Conservatives own Saskatchewan and Alberta (although voter enthusiasm for the government has cooled somewhat since the economy hit the skids). The perpetually confusing race in British Columbia shows a competitive four-way race with the Liberals on top. In our experience, British Columbian voters’ enthusiasm for the Liberals is always higher in the polls than it is at the ballot booth.

The demographic profile with respect to age, education, and gender is pretty familiar, with the Conservatives in great shape with older, male and less well-educated Canadians. Perhaps the most interesting demographic pattern is the link to the new Canadian vote. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s public comments about ‘jihadists’ and the niqab seem to be finding favour with the less educated and with francophone voters in Quebec, particularly in Quebec City. But there seems to be a tradeoff: The Conservatives are now doing poorly with new Canadians, which is now one of the strongest segments of Liberal support.

The Bloc Québécois has enjoyed a surprising comeback in recent weeks, although its support is still well below historical levels. This recent surge probably doesn’t mean a lot, but it means something. The Bloc has no machinery, little money and a leader who is not particularly popular outside of a small base of ardent sovereigntists. So why are they doing so much better?

First, we need to recognize that the Quebec voter landscape is extremely volatile and very loosely rooted. The Bloc vote is an anti-federalist vote which is unhappy with the Conservatives, but is not particularly excited about the Liberals either. The party’s base is disproportionately young and poorly-educated. These voters are driven more by social issues than by sovereignty, but they would have a hard time switching to either the Conservatives or the Liberals. In all likelihood, a large portion of these voters will either stay home or default to the NDP come election day.

From other research, we believe that values are going to be critical in this election. Values are critical to emotional engagement — and emotions win elections. Last fall, it was clear that progressives had a clear advantage on values and there was an apparent frustration with the values narrative of the Harper government. However, this normative advantage (which is highly important because it drives turnout) seems to have been rather abruptly surrendered to the Conservative party.

To explain this shift, we don’t have to look much further than the security file. The shooting episode in Ottawa, followed by the horrific shootings in Paris and the serial barbarity of Islamic State, have all coalesced to produce a very significant shift in public fears about security. More recently, Mr. Harper’s position on the niqab seems to be appealing to the same segments who were attracted to Quebec’s secular charter. We do recognize, however, that the Parti Québécois, the architects of the secular charter, faltered in the last provincial election.

What’s interesting is that Mr. Harper’s comments on jihadist terrorism and the niqab have not enhanced Mr. Harper’s surprising values advantage from the last poll. While this strategy appears to resonate in some areas of Quebec, it may be hurting the party’s standing with new Canadians. It is also surprising to see that the typical gap between Quebeckers — who historically have been less supportive of military engagement — and the rest of Canada is no longer evident with the current mission in Iraq.

And other values could very quickly displace this effect; the values advantage that Harper had opened up two weeks ago already seems to be fading. In any case, the opposition leaders have yet to join this broader values contest, which will be critical to the outcome of the next election.

Meanwhile, Canadians’ rather grim sense of arrested progress appears to be even more dismal that we saw in the last sounding. This issue is worth following, because if it continues to be the case that only one Canadian in seven believes that they have done better this year than last, progress will be a difficult ballot issue for the Conservatives to overcome in the fall — when emotions surrounding the terror file may have receded.

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 cellphone-only households and landline-only households.

The field dates for this survey are February 11-17, 2015. A random sample of 3,386 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-1.7 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.