QUEBEC - Much time, hard work and roughly $1 billion has gone into securing a swath of Conservative ridings around Quebec's capital, which could be integral to Stephen Harper's hopes for a majority government.
It was here, after all, where the Conservatives first tasted success in 2006, surprising experts by taking a handful of ridings from the Bloc Quebecois on their way to ousting the Liberals.
And it was here, when facing disaster in the rest of the province two years later, Tory support held strong.
But the Conservative redoubt in and around Quebec City -- comprised of eight rural and suburban ridings in the area --has started to show signs of weakness.
The Conservative government's decision not to fund a new NHL-style arena provoked a fierce backlash in a city desperate for the return of its beloved Nordiques.
The party's opponents have stoked the issue, hoping to keep the anger fresh enough for voters to take with them to the ballot box on May 2.
Conservative MP Josee Verner, who played a central role in orchestrating the 2006 breakthrough, acknowledged the arena issue has dogged her campaign.
"We've had to explain our reasons more than once," she said laughing in a recent interview.
"It was a decision that wasn't easy, but it was a rational decision... We couldn't (fund the arena) for the simple reason that we didn't only have requests from Quebec. We had requests from all over the country."
Of the Conservative ridings being singled out by the opposition, it is Sylvie Boucher's seat in Beauport-Limoilou that is perhaps most squarely in their crosshairs.
Both the existing arena, known as the Pepsi Colisee, and its proposed replacement would be located within Beauport-Limoilou's boundaries.
It is also a riding the Tories won by only four percentage points in 2008.
But the Bloc's campaign organizers believe anger over Ottawa's decision reaches into nearby ridings, including Verner's seat in Louis-Saint-Laurent.
The Bloc has worked hard to keep the arena-funding issue front and centre in the campaigns around Quebec City.
It recently released a postcard of eight Conservative MPs from Quebec posing with Nordiques jerseys -- a not so subtle reminder of a time last fall when local Tories were vocal supporters of the arena project.
For the Bloc, it helps underscore a running campaign theme: the Tories can't be trusted to keep their promises.
"The people are insulted by the Conservatives' attitude," said Michel Guimond, a Bloc MP from Montmorency-Charelvoix-Haute-Cote-Nord and his party's Quebec City organizer.
"People are angry at the Conservatives and Mrs. Verner for not having been straight with us from the beginning."
But as central a role as the arena question may play in the Bloc's campaign strategy, the issue may be waning in importance for voters, especially in Beauport-Limoilou.
With an unemployment rate more than five percentage points higher than the national average, few list the arena as a priority.
"All those who don't use the arena will be the ones paying for it," said Claudette Jolin as she left a casino next to the old Colisee.
"We don't even have the population to support a hockey team. We need the money for other things instead."
The Tories are hoping a series of high-profile investments they've made in and around the city will take attention away from their arena flip-flop.
Since coming to power in 2006, Ottawa has meted out $1 billion in spending for the Quebec City area, Verner said.
"It's important to remind people because years go by and we can forget just to what point we've made progress in the Quebec City region," she said.
"The city, and the area around the city, is bustling and the people here appreciate that."
The warren of Conservative ridings around Quebec City stand out from the rest of the province, where the more progressive politics of the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois tend to hold sway.
The Tories hope voters outside the region notice just to what extent it has been lavished with government spending, playing off its controversial slogan 'your region in power.
"We are the proof that it works," Verner said. "That's essentially the message we're trying to get across."
Asked to explain why the Tories have had more success here than in other parts of the province, Verner was unequivocal. People here are more conservative, she said.
"The composition of the population here is very different from Montreal," she said. "That's not pejorative, I'm just saying it's different."
Recent evidence would seem to support that claim. Much of the Quebec City area threw its support behind the Action democratique du Quebec, a right of centre populist party, in the 2007 provincial election.
But Guimond suggests Tory support in the region is just a phase.
ADQ support almost completely collapsed in the 2008 election, and he points out the region has alternately supported the Bloc and the Liberals in the past.
"I don't really agree with her interpretation," Guimond said of Verner's comments.
"One of the things that voters don't like is politicians who take their support for granted."
