As he alights on an airport tarmac in Israel, today, Prime Minister Jean Chretien will undoubtedly be preoccupied by the crowded schedule he and his staff have prepared for themselves. In the next week or so, Mr. Chretien will meet with leaders in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, to discuss the Middle East peace process, among other things. If his official schedule is any indication, he will certainly be earning his pay.

It is anyone’s guess, really, as to how much time Mr. Chretien will devote to pondering the musings of defeated or demoted Parliamentarians – the nattering nabobs of negativity, to recall Pat Buchanan’s most delightful alliteration. As he was packing his suitcase for his Middle Eastern trip, earlier this week, the Prime Minister may have noticed that the Toronto Globe and Mail somehow decided to devote its front page to the screeching of one of Canada’s most ineffective Health Ministers ever, a Sudbury woman whose name now escapes me (and a majority of Canadians). Or, as he made his way to the Ottawa airport, Mr. Chretien may have heard about the Toronto speech of an insurance salesman – and a single-term Liberal MP - at the annual Public Policy Forum dinner, who remonstrated Mr. Chretien for having the temerity to oppose the despised Meech Lake Accord.

As an avid student of Canadian history, however, Mr. Chretien knows it is usually unwise to lose too much sleep to the mutinous blatherings of Parliamentary nobodies. The Prime Minister will know that when leaders go away, the nattering nabobs often decide to play. Recent history is littered with examples of perfectly fine international trips being hijacked by the natterers, or by plain old bad luck. In May 1985, for example, on his first journey abroad as Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney was distracted by the business dealings of his Industry minister, Sinclair Stevens, who later resigned. Earlier, in December 1979, Joe Clark’s government went down to defeat on a vote in the House of Commons, because External Affairs Minister Flora MacDonald was away on her first international jaunt.

And so on. Every hack and flak on or near Parliament Hill is aware that many Prime Ministers approach trips abroad with foreboding and dread. So should Mr. Chretien be concerned, as he makes his way, hither and yon, across the cradle of civilization?

Not a chance. As he attempts to snatch a few minutes’ of sleep in the cramped confines of one the government’s creaky jets, Mr. Chretien is advised to tuck a copy of Ekos Research Associates’ latest poll under his pillow. While the malcontents may continue to bleat back home, the Prime Minister need fear not.

The Ekos poll, which was released only a few days ago, surveyed more than 1,200 Canadians in every region. It found – with a margin of error of less than three per cent – that nearly 56 per cent of Canadians intend to keep voting for Mr. Chretien. His nearest rival, the Progressive Conservatives – not to be confused with the name-thieving Reform Conservatives – could manage only a pitiful 13 per cent. In every region of the country, Mr. Chretien’s Liberals dominate (even in the Reform/Alliance heartland of Alberta and British Columbia, where the Grits more than double their opponents’ levels of support).

“[The] Liberals continue to enjoy a commanding lead, notwithstanding the HRDC travails and an acrimonious and divisive backdrop concerning leadership at [the Liberal Party’s] recent convention,” commented Frank Graves, Ekos’ brainy boss. “High levels of economic confidence, a moribund Quebec sovereignty movement and a fragmented and stalled set of Opposition alternatives may explain the surprising robustness of Liberal support.”

Mr. Chretien shouldn’t start scanning the want ads because a demoted Health Minister and pro-Meech Lake insurance salesman are criticizing him, either, it appears. Among traditional Liberal voters, Mr. Chretien is rated as the best possible leader by 76 per cent of Ekos’ respondents. In the minds of the core Grit constituencies – women, youth, lower income Canadians and residents of Liberal strongholds like Ontario and the Atlantic – Mr. Chretien easily outpolls any alternative, in any party. Quebec nationalists and Reform-style right-wingers do not seem to favour him – but, last time we checked, none of those people ever vote Liberal, either.

So, as you make your way across the Middle East, Prime Minister Chretien, you will not be surprised to learn that the nattering nabobs of negativity will likely persist in their sniping.

But also rest secure in the knowledge that the nabobs – like legislative eunuchs and impotents everywhere – are not likely to get it up anytime soon.

[Warren Kinsella is a Toronto lawyer and former assistant to Jean Chretien.]