The only truly national party

From the estimable Laurent:

In 1979, the Liberals crushed the Conservatives in Québec, winning 61.7 percent of the vote and 67 seats compared with 13.5 percent of the vote and 2 seats for the Conservatives. In 2006, the Conservatives won 24.6 percent of the votes in Québec compared with 20.7 percent for the Liberals and they became the first choice among Québec federalists. Though the Liberals won 13 seats compared with 10 seats for the Conservatives, the Conservative Party has a broader support base in Québec: the Conservative candidate finished in second place in 40 Québec ridings compared with 14 second places for the Liberals... In the 26 federal elections held from the First World War to 2004, the Conservatives won 10 or more seats in Québec in only 5 elections and they won 5 or more Québec seats in only 10 elections. In only 3 out of these 26 elections did the Conservatives beat the Liberals in Québec. The Liberals have historically used this weakness against the Conservatives and, at least since the 1949 elections, the Liberals have claimed to be "the only truly national party". As columnist Michel C. Auger puts it, the Liberal Party's strength "had always been its status as the great national party, the only one where francophones and anglophones came together". The real story of this election is the decline of the Liberal Party as a national party, having become the third choice of Quebecers and having been limited to ridings with a strong anglophone or allophone presence...

And then he quotes me, but that's neither here nor there.