The party support numbers in the CBC/Environics poll (in per cent) are: Conservatives 33, Liberals 27, NDP 24, Bloc (11 nationally, 51 in Quebec) and the Greens at 2.

There's a CBC.ca poll support numbers story. There's also an issues story.

Here's some earlier poll postings:

April 13: Decima has it 31-30 for Tories; Leger 24-31 for Tories

April 12: Liberals clobbered in latest Ipsos-Reid poll too - 27%

April 11: Liberal support at 25 per cent

Now, the sampling for this poll was done Monday through Wednesday -- three to six days after Jean Brault's stunning testimony was made public.

They aren't really worse than the polls released earlier this week when the sampling was done in the heat of sponsorship anger.

So the million-dollar question becomes, Is this as bad as it will get for the Liberals?

Pollster Allan Gregg said on CBC tonight that 33 per cent may be as high as the Conservatives will get.

Columnist Chantal Hebert found it astounding the NDP and Liberals were almost tied.

Columnist Lorne Gunter also noted that only one in three voters who have abandoned the Liberals have gone to the Conservatives.

"But it's the first time since 1984 the Conservatives have gone into an election ahead of the Liberals," he said.

And all three do think there will be an election this spring.

But 76 per cent of respondents in this poll think an election should wait until the Gomery commission has finished its work (it was 87 per cent in the Ipsos-Reid poll).

While 41 per cent thought there was no single issue that was worthy of triggering an election, 37 per cent said sponsorship would do it for them.

On CTV, Ottawa veteran Craig Oliver found it fascinating that the combined scores of poor government/Gomery trumped health, which has been the biggest concern for Canadians since the beaver pelt trade dominated the economy (a little joke there, my more literal-minded readers).

Do the poll's respondents think a new bunch of sheriffs riding into Dodge will clean things up? Sixty-eight per cent say all parties operate the same way, while 29 per cent think some political parties are more ethical than others.

Methinks if the Conservatives think this is as bad as it gets for the Libs, then they'll decide it's time to pull the trigger.

Governing parties traditionally lose support during a campaign. If the Liberals have nowhere to go but up, then it's logical for the Conservatives to assume it's time to defeat the government now and set the election wheels in motion.

From what Oliver says, the momentum within the Conservatives for a June vote is at the point where it is almost impossible to stop.