While some polling has reportedly had the Tories making gains in Ontario, a new EKOS poll for the Toronto Star, released Monday, suggests that isn't so.

An excerpt:

The federal Liberals are within striking distance of majority government, according to a new Toronto Star poll.

But it's a shaky strength built on disenchantment with the Conservatives and a public that's "listless" and scandal-fatigued.

The poll, conducted by EKOS Research Associates, shows the Liberals at 40.2 per cent support nationally, up from the 36.7 per cent they obtained in last June's election.

The increase seems to be coming at the expense of the Conservatives, whose national support slipped back to 26.5 per cent — found mostly in its old, traditional constituencies and farther away from the centrist mainstream. The Conservatives received 29.6 per cent of the vote in the 2004 federal election.

EKOS president Frank Graves describes the electorate generally as "listless" and "fractured" — words that have also been used to characterize the type of minority government Prime Minister Paul Martin has been leading since last June.

With the federal budget coming Feb. 23, the public's appetite for social-program spending also continues to grow, the poll found. When EKOS asked whether the budget surplus should go to debt reduction, tax cuts or social-program investment, an overwhelming majority — 61 per cent — favoured social spending, compared with just 18 per cent worried about the debt and 19 per cent favouring tax cuts. This social-program bent of the electorate could also explain why the New Democrats are at 18.7 per cent, up three points since the last election, and at a heady 32 per cent support in British Columbia, Graves said. "Relatively, they have improved the most since the election," Graves said.

In Ontario, which is the key, the Liberals have 46 per cent support, which is comparable to the 44.7 per cent that got them 75 seats there last time.

The Tories have 32 per cent, which is only slightly better than the 31.5 per cent they captured at the polls.

Now, that's based on a subset of a national poll, so the margin of error will be higher than the three percentage points recorded nationally.

What I'm waiting to see is the poll results after the first round of voting on the same-sex marriage bill. It will be interesting to see if any support shakes away from the Liberals over that.

In some ways, it might not, because there are already right-wing Liberals who are likely to vote against the same-sex marriage bill representing ridings in the GTA. If they're seen to vote against the bill, the anti-same-sex-marriage ethnic groups in those ridings might say, "oh well, you gave it the old college try," and not move to the Tories as punishment.

What will make things even more interesting is if the budget is well-received and the Liberals start rising in the polls into safe majority territory.

Does Paul Martin wait for Gomery to report or does he try and engineer an election somehow?

While Paul has two new friends in St. John's and Halifax after signing the offshore accords, his Liberal pal Dalton in Ontario was sounding less than pleased.

How much can a pissed-off Ontario provincial government hurt federal Liberal popularity in a province the Grits absolutely must dominate to hold power?

I delightfully wait to see what answers the future holds to these questions. :)