NDP surging nation-wide and in Quebec: polls

TORONTO – If the polls are right and NDP Leader Jack Layton is enjoying a sudden, almost meteoric, surge of support in Quebec, he’s not showing it.

That may be because the NDP has been in similar territory before, only to see support fizzle on election day. There’s also a wide disparity in opinion polls, some of which suggest the NDP is still well back.

Layton, for his part, was playing down talk of a Quebec breakthrough Thursday, refusing to speculate on how many seats he hopes to pick up.

At a campaign stop in Toronto, he playfully joked with a reporter who suggested Thursday that he might manage only a handful of additional seats at best.

"Most people are talking about two, three or four seats?" he beamed.

"Progress already!"

The NDP had only one seat in Quebec when the election was called – Thomas Mulcair’s seat in the Outremont area of Montreal – and has only elected one other Quebec MP in the party’s history.

Since the televised leaders’ debates, Layton has risen sharply in opinion polls. Two polls released Thursday suggested the NDP were leading in Quebec, cracking a lock long held by the Bloc Quebecois.

But other polls, including the most recent Canadian Press-Harris Decima survey, suggest Layton’s rise in Quebec has only brought him into a close fourth place.

Layton’s right to view the polls with a skeptical eye, pollsters have warned.

Regional surveys carry a larger margin of error, and online surveys can skew toward tech-savvy young adults who are more likely to support the NDP but less likely to vote.

It was precisely that demographic Layton was aiming at Thursday when he talked up the NDP’s plan to restore and protect the "digital rights" of Canadians.

An NDP government would require cell phones to be unlocked, allowing consumers to change service providers more easily, he said, and would ban usage-based billing for Internet service.

And he took another shot at Prime Minister Stephen Harper, portraying him as a tech-wary Luddite who doesn’t much care about issues important to the high-tech online crowd.

"It’s no surprise we’re falling behind; Stephen Harper is a Commodore 64 in an iPad world," Layton quipped.

"Mr. Harper thinks an app is something you order before dinner."

The NDP would also spend millions of dollars to expand broadband service to all areas of the country, he added.

Layton’s sudden popularity has not gone unnoticed.

The Bloc Quebecois has been focusing more of its attacks on Layton, calling him a hard-line federalist and accusing him of ducking questions about Quebec rights.

For example, Layton has consistently refused to answer a yes-or-no question directly – whether he supports the Bloc’s push to replace bilingualism in federal workplaces in Quebec with the more stringent provisions of Quebec’s Bill 101, which requires French to be the official language in the workplace.

During the debates, Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe tried to pin him on the issue, and Layton replied that he supports the right of people to speak French in Quebec workplaces.

He continued that line Thursday when pressed by reporters.

"We support the principles of the Charter … that call for people who speak the French language to be able to use that language in their workplace when it’s federally regulated."

Layton’s apparent surge may also be reminiscent of former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent’s rise in the weeks leading up to the 1988 election.

One survey pegged the NDP ahead of all other parties, but on election day, the party finished a distant third.

Broadbent later resigned.

Layton’s campaign tactics have not changed despite the strong

polling.

He holds town-hall meetings, fields a multitude of media questions daily and talks to supporters in small venues about planks in his platform.