The underlying dynamics of Canadian public opinion make it very risky for any opposition party to push for a new election at this time, says a pollster.

"The potential for the Liberals to go up in votes is very significant," John Wright, senior vice-president with Ipsos-Reid, told CTV.ca on Sunday.

If the opposition parties "had some hubris and felt they could topple the government ... there's a lot of potential for collateral damage."

The federal budget will be released Wednesday. A vote on the budget is a vote of confidence in the government, so if the budget wasn't accepted by Parliament, an election could be triggered.

The governing Liberals only have 37 per cent support in a new poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail by Ipsos-Reid. That's about the percentage of the vote they captured in the June 28 federal election

But that's not where the action is, Wright says. Almost half of Canadians (47 per cent) say the Liberals deserved to be re-elected -- an 18 percentage point rise since the June 28 federal election.

Wright says that's a very strong predictor of voting behaviour.

While the Economist magazine has dubbed him Mr. Dithers, Prime Minister Paul Martin is the top choice of Canadians to be prime minister:

• Fifty-six per cent of poll respondents approve of his performance.
• Almost half (49 per cent) think he's the leader Canada needs for difficult times

In comparison, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper -- the leader of the opposition -- has only 38 per cent support.

If an election were held tomorrow, here's how the respondents' support would break out:

• Liberals - 37 per cent
• Conservatives - 26 per cent
• NDP - 17 per cent
• Bloc Quebecois - 10 per cent
• Green Party - seven per cent
• Others - four per cent

In Quebec, the Bloc leads the Liberals 39-34.

Given everything, "the potential for the vote to climb their (the Liberals') way to a majority is certainly there," Wright says.

However, downsides also exist for the Liberals.

Thirty-nine per cent of respondents say their opinion of Martin has worsened since the federal election. The prime minister is down by 10 points.

Harper is down by four points.

In comparison, Jack Layton is up 12 points and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe up 22 points.

The latter is significant because Martin is -23 in Quebec.

"They have some problems in Quebec," Wright says about the Liberals.

For one thing, the Gomery inquiry into the federal sponsorship scandal is a bigger issue in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada, he says.

The inquiry will shift to Montreal on Feb. 28, putting even more focus on the story.

Quebec is one province where the Liberals must make a breakthrough to form a majority government.

When they did so in 2000, the Liberals won 36 seats, compared to the Bloc's 38. In 2004, the Liberals dropped to 21 seats while the Bloc rose to 54. Gaining back those 15 seats would put the Liberals within five of gaining a majority (155 of 308 seats).

The budget

The poll also asked questions about spending priorities for the federal surplus.

It gave different groups of respondents a series of paired choices on where they wanted to see the federal surplus spent.

Here were their priorities:

1. "Increase spending on health care" (66%) tops the list of Canadians surplus spending priorities; followed by

2. "Increase spending on post-secondary education" (46%);

3. "Cut taxes for middle class Canadians" (45%);

4. "Reducing the Government of Canada debt" (39%);

5. "Create a new national childcare program" (39%);

6. "Increase spending on environmental issues such as the cost of implementing the Kyoto Accord" (34%); and

7. "Increase spending on Canada's military and national defence" (27%).

Wright says he found the appetite for a middle tax cut interesting, "but that speaks more to the tactics of the government, who might try to ensure it is appealing to those individuals who might look to that kind of leadership from the Conservatives."

Defence spending is consistently ranked highly as a priority by Canadians, Wright says, yet it fared badly compared to other federal spending areas.

"What it says is the government should be making an acknowledgment, through the budget process, that the military should have some kind of increased funding. But it's not the overarching issue that's affecting Canadians."

Methodology

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/ CTV/The Globe And Mail poll conducted from February 15 to February 17, 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 2,002 adult Canadians were interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the aggregate results are considered accurate to within ± 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within each sub-grouping of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.