To quote Shania Twain...

"UP UP UP"... That's the direction the polls are taking these days for the Conservatives.

The Tories are polling at 43% in Ontario... a full 10 point spread over the Liberals, on their home turf. That's "winning seats in the GTA" kinda numbers. We're also in a dead heat in Quebec.

There's a couple of little gems burried in the The Strategic Counsel poll, from the Globe and Mail... "The Bloc Québécois continued to fall, hitting a postelection low of 33 per cent in Quebec, down three points from last week." And this one... "Quebeckers are also far more likely than other Canadians to support the budget, with 56 per cent saying they have a favourable impression of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's spending document outlined on Monday."

We were still a significant number of points behind the BQ on election day 2006 (42% for them, 25% for us). With those numbers, we still managed to win 10 seats. This week? We're only nine points back of them. Of course, the Liberals appear to have picked up most of the BQ slide, but here's something to think about for you... our surge last election was due to disenchanted Liberals supporting us. Now, most of those Liberals have moved back to their own party... and we're the ones bleeding support from the Bloc. If Charest wins a minority on Monday, with an ADQ opposition, or PLQ government minority propped up by the ADQ, the seperatists will be crushed... and look for support to slide even further if a Federal election is called anytime soon.

But overall, the only real way to describe the Liberal support, especially in Ontario, is to use the word "collapse".

You hear that Mr. Dion? Do you really want an election to "get back to power as soon as possible"? I think I'll quote Dirty Harry here... "Go ahead... make my day"

h/t to Greg Staples