http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1114511347232_109920547/?hub=CanadaOTTAWA — A poll conducted after Prime Minister Paul Martin's televised sponsorship speech suggests his appeal didn't give the Liberals a boost, but may have halted Conservative momentum.
The Decima Research poll, conducted Thursday to Sunday, indicates the Conservatives were still out in front, favoured by 32 per cent of respondents compared with 27 per cent for the Liberals. The NDP was at 21 per cent and the Bloc Quebecois was at 15 per cent nationally, or 58 per cent in Quebec.
Last week, a Decima poll put the Tories at 35 per cent and the Liberals at 28 per cent.
The latest survey of just over 1,000 Canadians is considered accurate to within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The poll, provided to The Canadian Press on Monday, is the first since Martin spoke to the country Thursday night about the sponsorship scandal and appealed for more time for his fragile minority government.
"We think it's a fair hypothesis that the prime minister's argument gave at least some voters a kind of pause to reflect," said Bruce Anderson, Decima's CEO.
"It looked for a while there as though the patterns for the two main parties were shifting in kind of a consistent direction and this week at least puts pause to that."
Greg Inwood, a political scientist from Ryerson University in Toronto, agreed.
"I think there was some effectiveness to Martin reiterating the line: 'Let Gomery do his job.'
"I think that gave pause to a lot of people who were ticked off at the revelations that were coming out.
"This might be the bounce from the speech."
The Tories had been moving up in the polls each week over the last month but a party official warned against reading too much into the figures because public opinion remains in flux.
"It's still too early to know how Canadians will react to Mr. Martin's begging for a second chance," said Conservative spokesman Geoff Norquay.
"Canadians are about to discover that Mr. Martin has just launched a 10-month election campaign backed by all the resources of the government of Canada - Challenger jets included."
Anderson emphasized that public opinion remains volatile and could change fast.
With all three federalist party leaders in the middle of campaign-style tours of Ontario during this week's break in House of Commons proceedings, the public will have plenty more opportunities to assess their relative merits.
Inwood suggested people angry at the Liberals over the sponsorship scandal who had been considering the Conservatives may be having second thoughts.
Tory Leader Stephen Harper, he said, is offering little but "scapegoating and scandal."
"That's not much to run a government on."
He said Martin's campaign-style touring this week suggests the Liberals see hope in fighting it out.
"I think it's pretty clear that his handlers have decided to go on the offensive and try and take it to the people."
The poll also suggested the Gomery commission has become a major part of the political scene. In early April, 34 per cent of those polled said they were following the inquiry closely. In the latest survey, that figure had risen to 58 per cent.
A Liberal spokesman had no comment on the poll.
An Ipsos Reid poll conducted over the weekend put decided voter support at 34 per cent for the Conservatives, 31 per cent for the Liberals, 18 for the New Democratic Party and five per cent for the Green party.
The survey of 1,000 people, conducted for CanWest-Global, polled one-thousand people and is considered accurate within 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Of those asked, 61 per cent said they would prefer to have an election after the final Gomery report is issued while 49 per cent said last Thursday's broadcast speech by Martin was an attempt to hang on to power.
