Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff gives an interview in his Parliament Hill office on Oct. 6, 2009.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff did much complaining about prorogation, but Canadians seem to like his party better when it is not in the House of Commons.
Conventional wisdom says sitting governments - Stephen Harper's Conservatives in this case - lose ground when Parliament is sitting and the opposition has a daily chance to rip verbal holes through their policies. But Mr. Ignatieff has been turning conventional wisdom on its head.
When federal politicians left for home just before Christmas last year, the Liberals were far back in the public opinion polls. Surveys suggested they had the support of about 26 per cent of decided voters - seven to nine points behind the ruling Tories.
Over the course of the fall session, Mr. Ignatieff and his caucus lobbed continuous accusations of a cover-up in the treatment of Afghan detainees at government benches. The assault chipped away at Conservative popularity - the Tories fell from the low 40s in October to the mid-30s in December - but it had little effect on the Liberals' own fortunes.
Then, just before the New Year, Mr. Harper decided to prorogue - and the Liberal numbers took off. On Feb. 4, an Ekos poll put Mr. Ignatieff's Liberals ahead of the Conservatives, albeit by the barest of margins. The Liberals sat at 31.9 per cent and the Conservatives trailed with 31 per cent- a spread that was within the margin of error of 1.7 per cent.
Week after week, pollsters described the two parties as being in a "horse race."
But the Liberal surge was not to last. The House returned at the beginning of last month and the downward slide began anew. A new Ekos poll released yesterday suggests Mr. Ignatieff's party has the support of just 27 per cent of decided voters.
Not that the Conservatives had anything to cheer about: They sit at 32.2 per cent support - far from majority territory. But they are clearly ahead of the people who sit opposite them in the House.
"The Liberals have made bad choices in terms of the issues they have chosen to focus on when the House is in session," said Kory Teneycke, Mr. Harper's former director or communications. "There is ample polling to demonstrate that the Canadian public is not fixated on the Afghan detainee story."
The Liberals "burnt up an awful lot of time" on that issue and others that are not particularly connecting with the Canadian public, Mr. Teneycke said. "And they are not issues that are ultimately going to be ballot questions for anybody," like the economy, he said.
But Warren Kinsella, a long-time Liberal strategist, said he believes the Conservatives are retaining their lead as a result of factors beyond the control of political parties.
"An improving economy, the absence of H1N1-type crises, people feeling good about the Olympics, the warmer weather, all that kind of stuff" plays a role, Mr. Kinsella said.
The Conservatives "also seem to be making a conscious effort to lay low - never a bad idea. [Former Liberal prime minister]Jean Chrétien, for one, knew the value of staying out of the papers. Conservatives may like to claim credit for their situation, but they shouldn't. They're still far from a majority - and the support for the two main parties is still more or less within the margin of error."