If you identify yourself as a Liberal or NDP voter, there’s a good possibility you’re worried right now.

After seven years of Stephen Harper, the majority of you see the Canadian zeitgeist shifting right — or at least holding steady — and those of you who believe the opposite are few and far between.

Conducted at the beginning of February, newly released figures from EKOS have exposed a peculiar disconnect between what supporters of the opposition parties perceive their fellow citizens believe, and what they actually do.

“The spurious perception of a rightward tilt is most pronounced where it is least welcome. Those who lean left are most likely to see a rightward tilt and the corollary is true for those on the right who see a leftward movement,”EKOS president Frank Graves wrote in a press release.

From February 1 to February 10, a random sample of 5,947 Canadians from across the country were asked a simple question:

“When it comes to political ideology, some people say that Canada is moving to the right while others say it is moving to the left. Do you believe Canada moving right, moving left, or not moving at all?”

Overall, 38 per cent of Canadians didn’t believe Canadians’ political ideology was changing at all — compared to 37 per cent who thought it was moving to the right — and 18 per cent to the left.

When broken down by voter intention, however, the findings were more pronounced.

More than any other party, NDP supporters tended to think Canadians are shifting to the right — at 47 per cent — as compared to 45 per cent of Liberals voters.

In comparison, only 33 per cent of Conservative voters thought that was the case.

At 20 per cent, Conservative supporters were more inclined than opposition supporters to believe Canadians’ ideology is actually shifting in the opposite direction — only 15 per cent of NDP and Liberal voters felt the same.

According to Graves, the perceived ideological shift to the right is “out of synch with reality.”

Based on tracking tests going back a decade — and sometimes as much as two — EKOS has found “scant evidence to support the popular thesis that Canada is shifting to the right,” he wrote in his analysis of the recent poll results.

Instead, Canadians are withdrawing from socially conservative values such as an emphasis on security and minimal government.

Year-old Manning Centre findings contradict that assessment.

In February 2012, the right-wing think-thank conducted 2,067 online interviews and concluded with — a margin of error of 2.4 per cent — that “Canadians continue to move – slowly but surely – to the right of the political spectrum.”

On a scale of one to seven, where seven represented the most conservative, the majority of their respondents clustered around four.

But one in five identified with the conservative side of the continuum, an increase from their 2010 and 2011 results.

Again, though, Graves argues that rightward shift hasn’t happened – it’s a “broad delusion in public opinion.”

Canadians aren’t shifting their political ideology, they just think they are.

“I would tend to favour the thesis of a relatively benign error in public perception which will eventually be dispelled by the deeper reality.”