MONTREAL - A day after the NDP released record-breaking party membership totals for Quebec, Bob Rae was working Wednesday to revive Liberal party support in a province it dominated through most of Canada's history.

The NDP says its card-carrying membership has increased by 50 per cent across Canada since October -- and has jumped by 600 per cent in Quebec.

Rae, who spoke to students in Montreal on Wednesday, expressed little concern about the NDP numbers, saying it's normal for memberships to rise during party leadership races.

"Let's not exaggerate," the Liberal interim leader replied when asked about the NDP's membership surge in Quebec.

"You're going to see a bounce in membership numbers when you have leadership candidates going out there recruiting members."

The NDP's numbers in Quebec fell well short of the target of 20,000 members leadership contender Thomas Mulcair had hoped to recruit. Rae also said issuing more cards during leadership races doesn't usually translate into permanent change and warned that the proportion of Quebec NDP members remains small compared to their national totals.

Starting March 1, NDP members are entitled to vote for their next leader, which will be decided at a convention on March 24.

The Liberals are busy trying to attract new members of their own, but Rae said they have lots of work to do to win back the francophone vote -- which has deserted them in recent elections.

Still, Rae insists that improvements are already underway.

He said the party's Quebec membership has been climbing for the last six months and now has around 5,000 members -- which is still less than half the NDP's tally of 12,000 in the province.

For the Liberals, it's a dramatic change for a party that regularly swept Quebec in most elections from the 1890s to the 1980s, giving it a consistent edge in one federal race after another.

In one memorable example, the Liberals won 74 out of Quebec's 75 seats in the 1980 election under Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The party also had a strong showing there in the 2000 election, before it was discredited by the sponsorship scandal and was subsequently decimated.

Rae, who has been touring Quebec this week, hopes to turn things around again.

He took the stage Wednesday in a small auditorium at Universite de Montreal, a school that has produced two former Liberal leaders: Trudeau and Stephane Dion.

Around 80 students -- at least half of them members of local young Liberals clubs -- greeted him with a warm applause.

Right from the start he acknowledged that Canada, and particularly Quebec francophones, delivered a clear message to his party last May.

"You all know well that the Liberal party suffered a severe defeat in the last election," Rae told the crowd as he began his 30-minute, French-only speech.

"As Liberals, the reality of our political situation is that if we don't receive considerable support from Quebec's francophone population, it is almost impossible for us to form the Canadian government."

He said a party in difficulty, like his own, is an ideal place for young people to join, be heard and move up quickly in the ranks.

During a question-and-answer period, students questioned Rae about his stance on floor-crossing MPs, university tuition fees, and a bill to add more ridings across Canada.

An executive member of the university's young Liberals club said afterwards that the event was an opportunity for students to get to know the Toronto MP.

Since the May election, Carl-Olivier Rouleau says he's seen more involvement in the party from young Liberals, including many francophones.

Rouleau's association revived the school's defunct young Liberals club in the fall and it now boasts around 40 members.

"(They) see that the party cannot operate all on its own -- it takes participation," said Rouleau, who could only offer anecdotal evidence of a modest shift.

"A lot of people have told me they joined after May 2 to help in the reconstruction."