After moving ahead of the Liberals in recent weeks, national support for the Conservative Party support has "gelled," according to a new poll.

The EKOS poll, released Thursday exclusively to the CBC, indicates the Conservatives have 36 per cent support nationally, followed by the Liberals with 29.7 per cent. The New Democratic Party got the support of 13.9 per cent of poll respondents, the Green Party 10.5 per cent, and the Bloc Québécois 9.8 per cent.

There are signs the electorate has "gelled" for the moment, with the Conservatives leading the Liberals by about six percentage points, EKOS president Frank Graves said.

In the EKOS poll, the Conservatives led in every province west of Quebec, while the Liberals led in Atlantic Canada and were second in Quebec behind the Bloc.

Conservative support began moving ahead in recent weeks after a summer that saw the party in a dead heat with the Liberals, according to polls.

The latest poll figures arrive on the day the House of Commons is to vote on a Liberal motion of non-confidence in the minority Conservative government.

The motion is not expected to trigger an election, since the New Democrats have said they will support the Conservatives and keep the government from falling.

Meanwhile, a slim majority of poll respondents remained opposed to Canada's participation in Afghanistan.

Nationally, 52 per cent of respondents said they were against the Afghanistan mission, while 33 per cent supported it. Another 15 per cent indicated neither option.

A poll in mid-July suggested 54 per cent of Canadians opposed the Afghanistan mission, 34 per cent supported it and 12 per cent held neither view.

The EKOS survey of 3,216 people was conducted by telephone between Sept. 23 and Sept. 29 and has an error margin of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Both landline and cellphone users were included.EKOSEKOS