The survey suggests the Tories would barely hang on to minority status were an election to be held Wednesday, with 32 per cent of Canadians surveyed saying they would mark their ballots for the government – down four points from the 2006 election.
The Liberals are holding steady at 30 per cent, the same as in the past election, as are the New Democrats at 18 per cent.
The Greens are at 10 per cent, up five from the vote.
Conservatives have dropped another two points, Libs one, NDP up two, Greens unchanged.
More bad news in the regionals, especially Quebec:
On the race for votes, the Conservatives have dropped most in Quebec, where 16 per cent said they would opt for the Tories, down nine points from the election. The Liberals are up one point to 22 per cent. The Bloc Québécois continues to significantly lead the pack with 46 per cent, up four points.
Ontario:
In Ontario, the Liberals increased their lead from last month by three percentage points over the Tories, to 39-31.
How's that "smile be happy" theme working in central Canada Mr. Flaherty?
It gets worse:
In Ontario, which has absorbed the brunt of recent layoffs, 32 per cent picked the government as the best stewards of the economy, down six percentage points from February. By contrast, the Liberals were picked by 34 per cent, seven points ahead of where they were.
In Quebec, 29 per cent picked the Tories, down four points, while 24 per cent chose the Liberals, a drop of two points.
I guess the next question, have the Conservatives hit bottom?
29 comments:
wake up its bad news for liberals,,,,I mean with all the bullshit coming out of the harper mess, we are tied......hes going to go to the summer recess and when he comes back dion will have gone down again with his tax message...
LOL.
And the question after that would be, can the Lib's pick up the pace bit by proposing something novel in terms of policy.
Not easy, but necessary.
That is why the summer was chosen, imo. I think to walk through this stuff during the summer and permeate the current Con cloud, will enable people to digest what we have to offer, feel comfortable with it and come the Fall it will be like putting on a comfy sweater.
The Con's haven't offered anything comforting.
Good grief, the one who is supposed to put us at ease at the moment is Jim Flaherty.
I'm always curious to see what these polls look like with Alberta stripped out of the totals. After all, you can't improve on 100% of the MPs, so the only news from there would be if there was actually a chance of a Conservative losing a seat out there.
Honestly, as much as I'd love to have an election NOW RIGHT NOW, there is really no point if we aren't going to thoroughly trounce these guys and send them back to Reforblicanland for now and ever more. Summer's out because, really, nobody shows up for summer elections. And by the fall we're all going to be so mesmerized by the spectacle of the U.S. campaign that nobody would even notice if we tried to have an election here.
Patience, grasshopper...
This is now the 5th poll in a row by SC showing the NDP inching upwards. No wonder they want an election as soon as possible.
Oh well, we can settle for picking up Guelph and Westmount-Ville Marie in byelections while biding our time.
What I find funny.. and sad.. is nobody remembers how the Conservatives got in.
The campaign started with the Gomery affair still very much in the news. Martin's Liberals sit on their hands for the first half of the campaign. The second half starts just as the NDP spark an RCMP investigation of Ralph Goodale. The Liberals then top that off with possibly the worst campaign in history, including the over-the-top set of anti-Harper ads that had to be pulled before being aired, but not before generating a ton of bad publicity.
Conditions could not have been more right for the Conservatives, and more wrong for the Liberals during that election, yet it's still a Liberal official opposition, with the Conservatives forming the smallest minority government in Canadian history.
Yet since then the Liberals have been running scared, and it's going to cost them. Since then they've continued to play into Conservative hands by letting themselves be defined by abstaining from Conservative policies. Yeah, I'm sure the Liberal pollsters have shown that it's not really having an effect, but when the election starts, I'm betting we'll see the conservatives negative campaign being along the lines of "Liberal government? Doesn't work" followed by a list of the various confidence votes and the percentage of liberal MPs that showed up.
The NDPs will gun for the Libs, because they know they won't get government and Liberal voters are the only place they can get seats from. The Cons will gun for the Libs because that's what Harper does. And the Libs have been gunning against themselves since day one.
I'm betting that unless the Liberals can come out with some really amazing policy, I'm talking a carbon tax shift that allows like 25% or more of the middle class's income tax to be cut, we're going to see yet another Harper minority and a continuance of his quest to make regular canadians feel as much disgust for democratic government as he does.
Would love to figure out how to square these Que. figures with CROP.
Well, the phrase "it's the economy, stupid" may kill the NDP. The polls say that only "11%" of the population trusts the NDP with the economy.
So, why are the NDP itching to go? I don't think they are - I think they're posturing big time. It doesn't make any sense to want to go to the polls on 11% trust with economy given what's going on right now.
If the question were "which party will do the best job of standing up for the average person during economic tough times?" the NDP would win hands down. so it all depends on how you frame the question.
I wonder who are the TWO PERCENT that think the Green Party will do the best job of managing the economy??
"Oh well, we can settle for picking up Guelph and Westmount-Ville Marie in byelections while biding our time."
If the NDP wins Guelph, I'll stop blogging.
All I can say, with regard to the discrepancy with CROP and the national polls, is that these national polls did a good job of predicting Quebec in the last election.
"The NDPs will gun for the Libs, because they know they won't get government and Liberal voters are the only place they can get seats from. The Cons will gun for the Libs because that's what Harper does."
And how is that different from every other election..?
Is Dion's job safe? His ability to communicate carbon tax shift plan is being questioned within the party. One thing about Harper is that he has the communication skills. Don't we Liberals need someone equally skilled to communicate our vision?
"Is Dion's job safe? His ability to communicate carbon tax shift plan is being questioned within the party. One thing about Harper is that he has the communication skills. Don't we Liberals need someone equally skilled to communicate our vision?"
Thanks for the concern.
"If the NDP wins Guelph, I'll stop blogging."
Awww... come on Steve, I don't want to loose reading your witty blog :)
Cam
About as much chance of that as the Liberals winning a seat in Calgary ;)
Let's don't forget the press; the media won't be Steve & the Dittoheads' poodle this next time. Steve & the Dittoheads might actually have to defend themselves against a rather unruly band of bards.
jimme
And there it is. For all the complaining from Cons about a biased media, both in 2004 and 2006, they received more favorable coverage than the Liberals, in 06 by a wide margin (even the Toronto Star!)
>>>>> The NDPs will gun for the Libs, because they know they won't get government and Liberal voters are the only place they can get seats from.
Wrong! Look at the results from places like BC. The Liberal vote has remained constant since 1993. It has varied no more than one percent. The NDP vote has gone up and down and its ebb is tied to the what the Reform party was doing. Alliance took took 50% of the vote in 2000, the Conservatives took 36% in 2004, the Liberals did not move, and the NDP went up 15%. hmmm
HOw do we now that the NDP didn't take votes from the Liberals and the Liberals took votes from the Conservatives and so the static net Liberal vote masks a lot of switching behind the scenes?
"All I can say, with regard to the discrepancy with CROP and the national polls, is that these national polls did a good job of predicting Quebec in the last election."
There was bit of a convergence between what the Quebec sub-samples of national polls were saying and what the big Quebec only polls by CROP and Leger were saying when it came to the final polls conducted in the last days of the federal election campaign. But we are not in a campaign right now...all things being equal, you have to believe that a poll of 1,000 poll is a lot more reliable than a poll of 250 people.
I do think that CROP shows much lower Liberal support and much higher NDP and CPC support because they mention the names of the party leaders and these days in Quebec, Dion is HATED (to put it mildly) while Harper and Layton both have high personal popularity. (i.e. you'd be surprised at how many people in Quebec don't know what the NDP is - but they like "le parti de Jack Layton")
I suspect that in an actual election campaign where most of the focus is on the leaders - vote preference will be guided by attitudes towards the leaders.
"I do think that CROP shows much lower Liberal support and much higher NDP and CPC support because they mention the names of the party leaders and these days in Quebec,"
Well then, that is a leading question isn't it? Why introduce the leader to question on party support? That makes me more inclined to believe the national polls, or at least gives them more weight. Also, what is the difference between election polling and other times? Do they change their methodology?
In the final days of a federal election campaign, people tend to think of the federal party leaders because that is the focus of the campaign - and so it gets factored into vote preference.
In a non-campaign period, people often don't even understand the difference between federal and provincial politics - if you don't specify "Le Party Liberal du Canada de Stephane Dion" a lot of people will mistakenly say they would vote Liberal because they like Jean Charest!
You could argue that the only really fair question would be to give each person the name of the local candidate in their riding - since that is what will actually be on the ballot. That is obviously not practical - so why not specify the party name and leader to be absolutely sure of what they are expressing a preference for.
I understand where you're coming from. If i were a Liberal, I'd also be ashamed of being associated with a total flop like Dion as well. But it's not my problem that the Liberals committed the "Montreal mistake"
"if you don't specify "Le Party Liberal du Canada de Stephane Dion" a lot of people will mistakenly say they would vote Liberal because they like Jean Charest!"
Sorry, that just sounds lame from here.
And, you mention that you can't mention candidates at this stage, so then the question is incomplete, or more correctly it is a better gauge to just ask the party question. Isn't it misleading to think the NDP will win seats in Quebec, just because people like Layton? What about the ground game, organization, not to mention actual voting history?
"Isn't it misleading to think the NDP will win seats in Quebec, just because people like Layton? "
People also said that up until the day of the Outremont byelection - then they all had to eat crow.
"Isn't it misleading to think the NDP will win seats in Quebec, just because people like Layton? "
Isn't it misleading to think the FEDERAL Liberals will win anymore seats in Quebec, just because people like Charest?
"People also said that up until the day of the Outremont byelection - then they all had to eat crow."
Actually, I said the NDP could win Outremont a month before the by-election, so my opinion isn't just biased slant.
"Isn't it misleading to think the FEDERAL Liberals will win anymore seats in Quebec, just because people like Charest?"
Who said that exactly? Hello.
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