MONTREAL— W ith no conclusive end in sight to the polling deadlock between the two main federal parties, more Conservative attention is being paid to the glass ceiling that has been keeping the party out of majority territory since the 2006 election.

While Stephen Harper is certain to remain unchallenged until after the next campaign, issues like the future leadership of the party and/or potentially crippling policy directions are surfacing within Conservative circles.

At least in veiled terms, such matters are increasingly being raised in public. Over the past week, Maxime Bernier – by far the most declared of the undeclared aspirants to the prime minister's succession – and Harper's former boss Preston Manning both waded in the glass-ceiling debate, dispensing ultimately contrary prescriptions.

Bernier's remarks focused on Quebec, a major sore point for the Conservatives since the 2008 campaign. Over the past two years, the party has usually been closer to the fourth-place NDP than to the second-place Liberals in Quebec polls, often lagging more than 20 points behind the leading Bloc Québécois.

A Tory by-election win in rural Quebec last fall turned out to be an isolated event. As Bernier was dispensing Quebec advice to fellow conservatives last weekend, a Léger Marketing poll was finding serious cracks in Conservative support in the party's Quebec City stronghold for the first time since 2006.

In his speech, Bernier came as close as a Conservative MP can these days to suggest the party would do better under a more Quebec-savvy leader. His general thrust was that poor marketing rather than party policy had been holding the party back in Quebec.

But Bernier had rather thin gruel to support his contention there is a rich Conservative vein just waiting to be tapped properly in Quebec.

He may win big majorities in his riding of Beauce but outside the ever-shrinking ranks of the provincial ADQ, Bernier is mostly seen as one of the more visible weak links of a mediocre Quebec lineup.

Coming out as a climate-change skeptic in the media last month has done little to dispel that perception. It also put Bernier at odds with Manning's prescriptions.

Based on a Harris Decima poll conducted for his Centre for Building Democracy, Manning reports that the "blueing" of the political centre is well underway in Canada. By that he means that core conservative values – including a preference for a small, unobtrusive federal government – are increasingly those of the mainstream.

But the poll also found the environment is a major area where the bulk of the electorate decisively parts ways with the current Conservative movement.

Indeed, a case can be made that a persistent Conservative blind spot to the environment has done more to lead the party to a minority dead-end in Quebec and elsewhere than clumsy marketing.

According to Manning, green conservatism could be the missing piece in the Conservative majority puzzle. If he is right, fitting that piece in the current Conservative layout is easier said than done.

Bernier has cast his leadership lot with the climate-change skeptics. And on Jim Prentice's watch as environment minister, the perception that the Conservatives are suspicious rather than sympathetic to the greening of Canada has been entrenched, not dissipated.

In fact, based on Manning's analysis, the day Harper's succession does open up, Prentice will be as hard-pressed as Bernier to demonstrate how he would chip away at a glass ceiling he is having a hand at consolidating.

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Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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