When looking at polls in this election year, never mind the national numbers except as general trend lines. This story is going to play out in the regional breakouts, notably Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

In Quebec, something weird is going on: the Conservatives are competitive again, for reasons that no one can quite explain.

In the latest EKOS poll for iPolitics, the Liberals lead in Quebec at 29 per cent, with the NDP at 24 per cent and the Conservatives at 23 per cent — tied for second within the margin of error. The Bloc’s support, at 18 per cent, is generally regarded as a parked vote.

If the Conservatives are really running in the mid-20s in Quebec, that would be a highly efficient vote in the 418 region of Quebec City, as well as the South Shore west and east of the provincial capital. That would translate into somewhere between 10 and 15 seats.

As recently as a mid-October EKOS survey, the Conservatives polled at only 14 per cent in Quebec. That poll was taken just after the parliamentary debate on the mission against the Islamic State in northern Iraq, which may account for the first Conservative uptick. The following week saw the murder of two Canadian soldiers in uniform at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the National War Memorial in Ottawa, followed by the lone gunman’s storming of the Centre Block on Parliament Hill.

See also:Terror could be rare winning issue for Conservatives in Quebec: Hébert

The shootings made national security a top-of-mind issue in Quebec, where it has remained ever since. The Charlie Hebdo massacre and the killings in a Jewish grocery in Paris last month received massive coverage in Quebec. The burning alive of a Jordanian pilot and now the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya have kept the Islamic State barbarians in the news cycle.

And Stephen Harper hasn’t done anything to talk down anxiety levels, either in Quebec or the rest of Canada. “The international jihadist movement has declared war,” he said after the Paris attacks.

Then last week in Victoriaville, Harper played to the gallery, saying the government would appeal a federal court ruling that a Toronto-area Muslim woman could remain veiled in her niqab and not show her face at a citizenship ceremony.

“I think most Canadians believe,” he declared, “that it is offensive that someone would hide their identity at the very moment they are joining the Canadian family.” Really?

When he said this in French, he received strong applause from the crowd arranged around him.

Harper was speaking in the secularist heartland of Quebec, where many have never even seen a woman in a veil, which doesn’t prevent them from having opinions about Muslims wearing clothing for religious reasons.

EKOS president Frank Graves describes Harper’s niqab comments as “an uneasy blend of secularism and xenophobia. He’s clearly playing that card.”

But it’s also working for Harper, at least for now, in Quebec.

In a year-end poll by Ipsos, 73 per cent of Quebecers supported the deployment against Islamic State, exactly the same level of national support. This is a startling number from Quebec, historically the most pacifist province in the country, home of the anti-conscription movement in two world wars.

Again, in a Léger poll last week, 72 per cent of Quebecers support the government’s new anti-terror legislation, Bill C-51, even though civil liberties could be compromised, as they were with the War Measures Act during the October Crisis of 1970.

The numbers are even higher in a new poll from the Angus Reid Institute. Among Quebecers, 87 per cent supported C-51, the highest support levels in the entire country, five points higher than the remarkable 82-per-cent national level of support.

When these attitudinal numbers are taken into account, the Conservative bounce in Quebec begins to make more sense.

The Conservative revival in Quebec City and south also explains Harper’s Quebec tour last week. From Victoriaville on Thursday, he campaigned in Quebec City on Friday, did a weekend photo op with Bonhomme Carnaval, and a talk-radio interview in which he said “a lot” of Radio-Canada employees “hate” conservative values. This is in the time-honoured tradition of prime ministers knocking Rad-Can, dating from Pierre Trudeau once threatening to “put the key in the door” and lock the place up.

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And in a city where the top local ask is a $100-million paint job for the historic Quebec Bridge, Harper even signed a Valentine for the bridge, promising $75 million from the feds. According to Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume, Harper wrote: “The bridge needs love, but above all it needs paint.”

Welcome to 418. You’ll be seeing a lot of Harper there.

L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy Magazine (policymagazine.ca) and a columnist for iPolitics. A longer version of this article is at ipolitics.ca

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