Liberals continue to trail Tories: poll

The federal Conservative Party continues to stay ahead of the Liberals, suggests a new EKOS poll, which found a gap of seven percentage points between the rivals.

The poll, released exclusively to CBC, suggests 32.4 per cent of Canadians would vote Conservative in a federal election, compared with 25.5 per cent who'd chose the Liberals.

The NDP has the support of 18.4 per cent, while 10.1 per cent back the Green Party and 10 per cent support the Bloc Québécois, the poll suggests.

Respondents were asked who they would vote for if a federal election "were held tomorrow."

The Conservative Party led among respondents in every region of the country except Quebec, where support for the BQ dominated, at 38.7 per cent.

Although last week, the EKOS results suggested the Liberals were on par with the Tories in Ontario, the latest poll found them lagging behind. The Conservatives were favoured by 36.8 per cent of those surveyed, and the Liberals by 29.9 per cent .

In Quebec, support for the NDP increased among those polled — to 13.8 per cent from 8.7 per cent, putting the Tories, Liberals and the NDP all in the running for a second-place spot behind the BQ, at 38.7 per cent.

Support was almost evenly split in British Columbia between the Conservatives, at 31.3 per cent, the Liberals, at 28 per cent, and the NDP, at 25.8 per cent.

For the poll, 977 Canadians aged 18 and over were surveyed July 14 to July 20.  The margin of error is plus or minus 3.14 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.