OTTAWA - Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's failure to connect with Canadians is emerging as a critical factor in the federal election and a key challenge for the Liberals entering the second week of the campaign, a new poll suggests.
A week's worth of media exposure coupled with TV ads designed to replace Dion's cool professorial persona with that of a hockey-loving outdoorsman appear to have made little difference, a new Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll suggests.
The Liberal effort may have made Dion even less likable to Canadians. The gap between his popularity and that of Prime Minister Stephen Harper - or even NDP Leader Jack Layton - is wider than ever.
And in an apparent acknowledgment of declining Liberal fortunes, a senior Tory campaign official said the Conservatives will be shifting their focus more on the NDP, and to a lesser extent the Green party, in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
"The challenge for the Liberals appears to rest squarely on Mr. Dion," Harris-Decima president Bruce Anderson said Sunday.
"If he continues to be the only leading voice of the Liberal party, aside from (his) team, the choice for him is between whether or not to go negative and take the fight to Stephen Harper, or ... improve his likability."
The Conservatives believe Dion's personal numbers are "driving down overall Liberal ballot support."
The poll, a survey of 1,393 adults across Canada conducted Sept. 10 through Sept. 13, found Dion's negatives increasing slightly during the first week of campaigning, with little corresponding uptick in positives.
In the case of Harper, the survey suggests precisely the opposite: that Canadians ended the week with more positive impressions of the prime minister than negative ones - a sign that a barrage of sweater-clad television ads designed to soften the Conservative leader's sharp edges have largely worked.
At week's end, 52 per cent of respondents said they had a positive feeling about Harper, compared to 34 per cent for Dion. Fifty-five per cent reported negative feelings about Dion, compared to 40 per cent for Harper.
The poll is considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Part of the problem may be that Dion is personally unpopular in Quebec, the only province where he speaks the dominant language fluently. At the same time he is trying to sell the complex Green Shift program to skeptical English-speaking audiences in a language in which he labours.
In an interview Sunday on CTV's Question Period, Green Leader Elizabeth May also alluded to Dion's linguistic obstacle, saying her presence in next month's leaders' debates may actually benefit Dion because she will have an easier time explaining the Green Shift to Canadians.
"Since it's our plan, the Green Shift plan, I can explain it well," May said. "I think the fact that I can explain it may be useful for Canadians in making up their minds on how to vote."
Of the leaders, May got the biggest bounce during the campaign's first week, with 40 per cent of respondents reporting positive feelings, up from 30 per cent. Her negatives also bumped up slightly from 20 to 25 per cent.
On the election question, the Conservatives led with 40 per cent support nationally, opening up a 14-point edge over the Liberals with 26 per cent.
The New Democrats stood at 15 per cent, the upstart Green party at nine and the Quebec-based Bloc Quebecois at eight per cent.
Provincially, respondents in Quebec gave the Bloc 34 per cent support - a slight lead over the Tories with 34 per cent - while the Liberals registered a distant 18 per cent.
Because of the smaller sample size, the margin of error for each provincial result is significantly larger than for the overall percentages.
Sunday was a down day for most of the leaders, with the key exception of NDP Leader Jack Layton, who held a rally in Gatineau, Que., near Ottawa, where he promised increased funding for women's programs.
Both the Liberals and the Tories released new Quebec ads on Sunday, with the Liberals striking hard at Harper's leadership and the Tories attacking the relevance of the Bloc.
After traversing the country last week, Harper will concentrate his campaign this week on the key battleground provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the Conservative official said.
Dion will head to St. John's, N.L., hoping to score points from the enmity between Harper and Conservative Premier Danny Williams, who last week launched an aggressive anti-Tory campaign he's dubbed A.B.C. - Anyone But Conservative.
All campaigns were regrouping Sunday after a hectic first week that saw the well-oiled Tory campaign sputter from a series of gaffes both substantive and silly - from pooping puffins to questioning the motives of the father of a fallen Canadian soldier - but with Harper emerging decisive and controlling the news agenda.
The prime minister made the most impact with his surprise vowed to unequivocally pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan when the current mission ends in 2011.
And in a replay of the his GST-tax cut pledge from the previous campaign, he made the most direct appeal to the pocketbooks of Canadians, pledging to cut two cents a litre from the excise tax on diesel and aviation fuel.
Dion opted to highlight his Green Shift program and make several targeted promises on immigration, restoring the courts challenges program and doubling the $1,200-a-year child-care allowance for low income families.
Layton pledged $8.2 billion over four years to create, protect and foster the growth of "green-collar" jobs and manufacturing, a moratorium on tarsands development, a cap on credit-card interest rates and a ban on automated banking machine fees.
More information on the poll is available from www.harrisdecima.com. Respondents to the poll were asked the following question: "If a federal election were being held tomorrow, who do you think you'd be voting for in your area?"
On the question of leadership, respondents were asked: "How favourable is your impression of (each leader)?" Choices included "very favourable," "favourable," "unfavourable" and "very unfavourable."
