Despite a determined effort to restore Canadians' confidence in government, support for the ruling Liberal Party continues to slide. A new poll shows support for the Liberals has fallen another four points since Thursday.

In an Ipsos-Reid poll completed for CTV after Prime Minister Paul Martin's weekend public relations blitz, results show the Liberals would only be able to count on 35 per cent of decided voters across the country.

The new Conservative Party of Canada appears to be the big beneficiary of the Liberals' misfortune. They gained another three points, pushing their support among decided voters to 27 per cent.

In contrast, the NDP slipped a percentage point to 17 percent, while the Bloc Quebecois edged up a point to 11 per cent.

And when the numbers are broken down regionally, they paint an even more dismal picture of Martin's re-election prospects.

In Quebec, the sponsorship scandal has hit the Liberals hardest. In only four days, the party dropped nine points to 31 per cent of decided voters.

But the effects aren't confined to Quebec. From Ontario west, province after province registered a Liberal decline.

Only in Atlantic Canada has the Martin message seemed to be working. Voter support in the Maritimes actually increased five per cent to a convincing 47 per cent of the decided vote.

The results are sure to be disappointing for the Prime Minister and his team, in light of the concerted damage-control campaign waged even before Auditor General Sheila Fraser released her scathing indictment of the government's mishandling of a federal sponsorship program designed to boost Canada's profile in Quebec.

Martin has been spearheading a textbook crisis management strategy designed to saturate the airwaves with his message.

The prime minister has empathized with Canadians' outrage, and even expressed some measure of his own anger, all the while presenting the impression of total public disclosure and complete media availability.

It's a strategy that has kept the prime minister and his earnest concern in the headlines, but not one to have vindicated Martin in the minds of many voters.

Ipsos-Reid found that 22 per cent of those polled still blame Martin for the sponsorship fiasco.

According to Chretien's former communications chief, the previous prime minister would have handled the situation much differently.

"There was a lot made of how articulate or inarticulate he was and people underestimated often how much of that was by design," Donolo told CTV News, reflecting on Chretien's inimitable public persona.

Donolo says it may now be time for Martin to take a page from his political rival's book.

"It's kind of what I call the rule of holes, when you're in one stop digging."

But if Martin's in a hole, it's one of his own making. Reporting from the capital, CTV's Lisa LaFlamme notes that it was the present Prime Minister who orchestrated Chretien's early departure from the PMO.

In so doing , she said, Martin is now forced to take the lead on one of the biggest scandals to ever hit the Canadian government.

Of those polled, 29 per cent point a finger at former prime minister Jean Chretien, while 16 per cent single out former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.

The poll was conducted over the last five days, based on a sampling of 1,055 adults.

It's considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.