In an election held now, 46% would cast a ballot for the Carney Liberals, and 31% say they would vote for Poilievre’s Conservatives. The Liberals have opened up a large lead in BC, Quebec, Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

But my eyes are drawn to what’s happening in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Our latest Spark Insights survey had a sample of 3055 nationwide, and included 368 interviews in Alberta, where we found the Conservatives with a slim 3 point lead over the Liberals (41%-38%).

In Saskatchewan (our sample is a lot smaller with only 104 cases) we are seeing similar signs, with the Liberals at 40% and the Conservatives at 39%.

Polling at 46% means that 54% said they were more likely to vote for another party. We asked if there was a chance they would vote Liberal and 38% said it was possible. This suggests a total Liberal potential voter pool closer to 66%.

Expanding Liberal support is tied to rising satisfaction levels with the Carney government; currently 66% and up 6 points from November. Satisfaction levels are 58% in Alberta and 56% in Saskatchewan. Just over a third of Conservative voters are satisfied, as are 49% of BQ voters and 59% of NDP voters.

We have extensive data on how people feel about the government’s performance on a range of priorities. More on that in a subsequent note in the next couple of days.

However, while the PM has been travelling to different parts of the world and Conservatives have raised doubts about the value of these trips, we asked two questions.

69% across the country believe these trips will deliver significant benefits to the Canadian economy. Across the three most western provinces at least two thirds feel this way, and half of Conservative voters do as well. Looking forward, 69% also think this work should be a priority for the Prime Minister. This includes a majority of Conservative voters.

My analysis of why these numbers are the way they are, goes like this.

People across the country agree with the urgency of building stronger diplomatic, trade and investment relationships, and they see the PM focusing pretty relentlessly on this priority.

Prairie voters in particular will have noticed progress on canola as well as contracts to export more uranium and LNG to Pacific customers.

Participation by Saskatchewan Premier Moe on a couple of these trips sends another signal that this federal government has been working to partner on economic policy with provincial governments.

Prairie voters may now be looking at their vote less as a way to express a grievance with Ottawa and more from the standpoint of how best to advance their interests.

Conservative critics are not convincing voters that this effort is not worth the time or cost. Canadians think upsides won’t happen instantly, but will happen. They believe that relationship building is an important part of ensuring those benefits. They don’t buy the argument that this work is a waste of time or a misplaced priority.

(Methodology notes: some polls only measure voting intention by party, others combine party and leader in their questions. We attach leader names as we believe this is a more accurate way to understand mood.

Our samples are weighted to reflect the regional, gender, age and education levels of the population as a whole. We do not weight according to what respondents say or recall how they voted in the last election, as we feel that introduces more risk of error. Consistently 8% tell us they cannot remember how they voted.)