Thanks to Roberto Luongo and the Canadian men's hockey team dispatching the Russians last night, Stephen Harper could win a majority if an election were held today, EKOS pollster Frank Graves mischievously says.
But that's not happening; we're not going to the polls anytime soon.
Still, there appears to be a slight Olympic bounce for the Conservatives as the country has been happy and filled with pride these last two weeks.
The Conservatives are helped by the fact the House of Commons has been shut now for five weeks, allowing them to avoid the slings and arrows of the opposition over issues such as Afghan detainees, reasons for prorogation and climate-change policy.
All this is reflected in a new EKOS Research poll showing the Conservatives with a small lead over Michael Ignatieff's Liberals. No longer statistically tied in voter support as the two parties had been for several weeks, the Tories now enjoy a three-point edge.
The poll gives the Conservatives 33.4 per cent compared to 30.3 per cent for the Liberals and 15.8 per cent for the NDP. The Bloc is at 8.2 per cent and the Greens are polling at 10.4 per cent. (Last week, EKOS had the Tories at 31 per cent with a two-point lead over the Liberals at 29 per cent.)
In battleground Ontario, the latest poll shows the Tories at 36 per cent, virtually tied with the Liberals, who are at 36.2 per cent. But that's not a remarkable change from last week, when the Conservatives were at 34.6 per cent in the province compared to the Liberals at 35.
The poll of 2,953 was conducted between Feb. 17 and 23.
"The overall data increasingly point to a highly unified CPC base, which is clearly short of any real aspirations of majority," Mr. Graves says in his analysis of this week's results.
He suggests the poll is "good news for the CPC and Harper"; the Tories are pulling away into "a clear, if greatly diminished from the fall, minority leadership position."
Last fall, the Tories enjoyed a 10-point lead over the Liberals. But Mr. Harper's decision to prorogue late last year until after the Olympics wiped that out.
Mr. Graves describes the lead the Tories have as a "less than comfortable" one with the "newly competitive" Liberal Party.
He wonders, too, if the Conservatives can sustain this small lead "once attention shifts from Haiti and the Olympics to the less friendly confines of Parliament."
MPs are back in the House of Commons next week facing the government's Throne Speech and federal budget.
"Unanswered questions on prorogation and detainees and a bare fiscal kitchen bereft of goodies to put under the tree" may not be a good way to gain in popularity, Mr. Graves says.