The Gomery report has pushed the sponsorship scandal back into the spotlight, and the Liberals' popularity among Canadians slid 10 points the past month, according to a new poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail.

In the days since Tuesday's release of the Gomery report, support for the Liberals has dipped and the two parties are essentially running neck-and-neck.

The Conservatives have the support of 31 per cent of Canadians while the Liberals have the support of 28 per cent. (That's a statistical tie given a 3-point margin of error.)

In a similar poll released Oct. 14, the Liberals had 38 per cent support; the Conservatives were at 25 per cent.

According to polling done this week for CTV and The Globe and Mail by The Strategic Counsel, the sponsorship scandal is second only to health care as the most important issue heading into the next election.

Sixteen per cent of Canadians said the sponsorship scandal was the most important issue, while 24 per cent said it was health care.

While a small majority (52 per cent) claimed that the report was about "as (they) expected", twice as many claim the results were "worse" (28 per cent) rather than "better" (13 per cent) than they expected.

While the Conservatives remain strong in the West, especially the Prairies, they have risen to 35 per cent support in Ontario, tied with the Liberals.

The NDP, meanwhile, now leads British Columbia, while the Bloc Quebecois now hold almost 60 per cent of the francophone vote, virtually guaranteeing victory in all the francophone seats in Quebec.

Election buzz

The poll results -- similar to an Ipsos-Reid survey also completed this week -- are heating up talk on Parliament Hill of an election sooner, rather than later.

The Liberals' minority government depends on support of the NDP, which is demanding action be taken to restrict the growth of private health care in Canada. Leader Jack Layton is now perusing a proposal put forth by Liberals.

"We are disappointed in what we see, but we are going to proceed in good faith over the weekend to study what has been offered here," Layton told a news conference Friday.

Layton has threatened to take away the support of his 18 seats in the House of Commons in a confidence vote that could come as early as Nov. 15.

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper swung into campaign mode Friday morning. Capitalizing on outrage rekindled by the release of the sponsorship report, he unveiled his party's "Accountability Act."

"When I become prime minister I will undertake an unprecedented overhaul of the federal government," he said. "That is my commitment to you."

"Cleaning up government begins at the top," he added, accusing Prime Minister Paul Martin of deflecting blame whenever the taint of scandal touches him.

"Under Paul Martin's watch the waste and mismanagement and corruption has continued."

Martin's vulnerability

Although the Gomery report exonerates the prime minister, the poll finds that a majority of the population does not believe that Martin, when he was finance minister, had no knowledge of what was happening with the sponsorship program.

The numbers show:

• 60 per cent do not believe that Martin was not involved
• 71 per cent feel he must be held accountable
• Only current Liberal voters believe he was not involved and should not be held accountable for the events that transpired, but even among these loyalists, almost 4 in 10 disagree.

CTV's chief parliamentary correspondent Craig Oliver said what must especially be disappointing for the Liberals is that the report "was supposed to be an emergency parachute which rescued them from the whole business of sponsorship -- and it didn't open."

On the question of which party is best at cleaning up the abuses that have occurred in the federal government, Liberals and Conservatives are tied at 20 per cent.

The only good news for Martin is that Canadians do not appear to be in any great rush to get to the polls to punish Liberals.

Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) still find Martin's offer to call an election after Gomery's final report more appealing than an immediate election call. Only Bloc voters appear to want an immediate election.

The poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 adult Canadians 18 years of age or older. The interviews were conducted between Nov. 2 and Nov. 3. A sample of 1,000 yields a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.