EKOS of the Week: Everything's coming up ... Green? Huh.

Full data tables available here. 

What jumps out most for me in this week's numbers, really, is the unexpected -- and, as far as I can tell, somewhat inexplicable -- rise in support for the Green Party, which went up 2.3 points nationally, and is now sitting at second place in one province. The province in question does happen to be Alberta, which somewhat lessens the excitement as far as the party's chances of finally landing a seat in the House, but still.

Other than that, both the Conservatives and the Liberals are down -- the former by slightly more than the latter, which means that the gap has narrowed slightly, albeit mostly mathematically. The NDP, meanwhile, eked up by a tenth of a point, but even so, it's hard to to see how these results will cause the election planning teams at any of the three party headquarters to break out the celebratory champagne and/or kazoos.

On to the regional numbers, each of which comes with its very own margin of error:

British Columbia (MoE 6.19)
Liberals: 29.6 (+4.3)
Conservatives: 29.4 (-4.0)
NDP: 25.0 (-0.6)
Green: 13.0 (+0.9)
Other: 3.0 (-0.6)

You know, I can't recall the last time the Liberals were ahead of the Conservatives in BC; in fact, they've slipped behind the NDP on more than one occasion over the last few months, which is why seeing them in the lead on the West Coast is, frankly, a bit unsettling, even if it is only by a fifth of a point, and no, I can't tell you where 0.6 of that 0.9 bump for the Greens came from, and I spent far too much time staring at the numbers while putting this post together, in a desperate effort to figure it out. I know that the pluses and minuses don't have to even out, necessarily, but for a math-challenged person like me, it always makes me doubt my calculations when it doesn't. Sigh. As politely pointed out in the comments, the pluses and minuses actually do even out this week, making my subsequent paranoia over my initial calculations even more tragic. 

Alberta (MoE 6.84)
Conservatives: 52.8 (-3.2)
Green: 14.8 (+5.6)
Liberals: 14.6 (-5.7)
NDP: 11.6 (+3.5)
Other: 6.2 (-1.1)

Okay, Alberta. Did you get tired of my constant cracks about your uncrackable consistency? Are you trying to be like Saskitoba, statistical dervish that it is, with numbers that careen hither and yon with wild abandon? Because if so, please don't. One is quite enough. Poor NDP, though -- they actually managed to go up by 3.5 points, but they're still stuck in fourth place thanks to those pesky, and very possibly oversampled Greens.

Saskatchewan/Manitoba (MoE 8.56):
Conservatives: 48.9 (+0.6)
Liberals: 21.4 (+5.1)
NDP: 14.2 (-8.8)
Green: 11.4 (-0.4)
Other: 4.0 (+3.5)

Then again, at least in Alberta, the NDP only has one seat to lose -- a nearly-nine point drop on the prairies -- Tommy Douglas country! --  is likely far more disheartening. Cheer up, Dippers: it's Saskitoba. Next week, it could very well be on the verge of being swept by the seemingly freshly emboldened Others.

Ontario (MoE 3.93)
Conservatives: 35.3 (-1.3)
Liberals: 32.8 (-2.2)
NDP: 15.4 (-1.2)
Green: 13.8 (+3.5)
Other: 2.7 (+1.2)

Wow, Ontario. What did every single party other than the Greens -- okay, and the Others -- do to set off this fit of pique against the established political choices? I was hoping, by the way, that we might be able to call an official trend -- a confluence, if you will -- with the Others and the Greens rising and falling in tandem, which would suggest that an EKOSbot vote for either party could be seen as a passive aggressive None Of The Above, but the data stubbornly refused to support my hypothesis. It might be worth charting over time, though.

Quebec (MoE 4.45)
Bloc Quebecois: 35.9 (-3.3)
Liberals: 21.8 (+0.9)
Conservatives: 17.3 (+1.3)
NDP: 12.1 (+2.8)
Green: 11.1 (+0.5
Other: 1.7 (-1.2)

Not too much to dwell on as far as La Belle Province goes -- all four federalist parties are up -- by more than five points combined, even -- and the Bloc Quebecois and the Others are down. The Liberals are slowly climbing out of the basement, and the Conservatives are nestled comfortably in the bomb shelter below, with plenty of canned food and bottled water. Unfortunately for the NDP, I fear that I've now exhausted that particular metaphor -- darn it, I should have started on the first floor -- which is a pity, because they've actually gone up by nearly three points, yet are still in -- the car idling outside, its inhabitants watching wistfully from within its cold metallic confines. "The lights are on," one asks, tentatively. "We could say we just happened to be in the neighborhood, and wanted to drop by to see how everyone is ..." (TO BE CONTINUED.)  

Atlantic Canada (MoE 7.72)
Liberals: 32.7 (-6.5)
Conservatives: 28.3 (+3.2)
NDP: 24.7 (+2.6)
Green: 9.9 (+4.3)
Other: 4.4 (+0.8)

And finally, Atlantic Canada, where the Liberals have lost that one week ten point lead, but still manage to hold the top spot, although the Conservatives are close behind, and - at least over the last polling cycle -- gaining fast, with the NDP creeping up from the low to mid-20s.

Finally, a gentle warning for the government, which had seemingly managed to close the yawning right direction/wrong direction chasm that had emerged over the previous month: The Up-Thumbers have fallen to 41.9 -- that's a drop of five points over one week, and perilously close to the post-prorogation low -- while the Down-Thumbers are at 45.4 -- a gain of 3.2 points over the same time period, mostly due to what appears to be widespread grumpiness in BC, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, as well as amongst women.