With the two main federal parties deadlocked in voting intentions, it should come as no surprise that a Harris-Decima poll has found that a majority of Canadians feel the Conservatives and the Liberals would both be better off under new leaders.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff have currenty in common that their parties regularly turn off as many as seven out of ten voters. But it is far from clear that anyone in the current cast of political actors would catch the fancy of a majority of Canadians.

These days the fast track to popularity is a provincial road, not a national highway.

To wit Brad Wall of Saskatchewan and Danny Williams of Newfoundland-and-Labrador who rose to rock star status in their respective regions by challenging the federal government's sense of what constitutes the national interest.

Still, there are two numbers in the Harris-Decima leadership poll that are bound to jump out at party strategists.

The first pertains to Stephen Harper's enduring lack of popularity in Quebec.

According to the poll, two-thirds of Quebecers (63%) feel the Conservatives should look for a new leader.

Quebec is a rare province where Conservative fortunes have declined steeply since the party came to power.

Since the 2008 election, it has fallen back to a distant third place- setting a new low esteem record for a federal governing party in Quebec.

The Harris-Decima numbers suggest that the Conservatives will continue to have limited Quebec prospects for as long as Harper is their leader.

But that is not to say that the Prime Minister's lack of Quebec appeal is a significant liability for most of his party's supporters. On the contrary, three-quarters of them - the most of any federal party - are happy with his leadership.

By comparison Michael Ignatieff sits uncomfortably at the other end of the leadership spectrum. He alone of the five leaders fails to impress a majority of voters across the national board as well as a majority of his party's supporters.

As lukewarm as Liberal support for Ignatieff may be now, it could quickly become more tepid if the party does not do well in a set of byelections to be held at the end of the month in Ontario and Manitoba.

After two years on the job Ignatieff has yet to deliver a win for his party, even on the virtual battleground of the public opinion polls.

The Nov. 29 vote comes at a fragile time in Ignatieff's leadership, a point when many Liberals feel that he and foreign affairs critic Bob Rae have taken the party out on a limb on Afghanistan.

It is now clear that the decision to promote a three-year extension of Canada's military presence in the war-torn country was a top-down one, with caucus very loosely (if at all) in the loop.

The Liberal party is no stranger to a top-down approach but controversial stances dictated from on high have more usually been a feature of the life of the party when it was in power and rarely on a front as traditionally sensitive for the party as this one.

Even as prime minister, Ignatieff would have faced an uphill battle to bring his caucus and the party on side with the post-2011 military presence he has inspired the Conservatives to maintain.

Like his past support for the American-led Iraq war or Paul Martin's initial intent to sign on to the US missile defence shield, the move goes against the grain of a significant number of Liberal activists.

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The adamancy with which Ignatieff and Rae have defended the government's decision to forego a vote on the new Canadian terms of engagement in Afghanistan is also awkward.

This is an official opposition that started off the year accusing Harper of contempt of democracy for proroguing Parliament for the winter. Now it is arguing that MPs need not vote on the country's signature foreign and defence policy.

At the very least, the events of the past week suggest that Canadians should no more count on the current Liberal leadership to restore and enhance the relevance of Parliament than on the ruling Conservatives.

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