TORONTO – According to another opinion poll, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals continue to enjoy more support today than they did in the 2015 federal election and have yet to see their poll numbers take a negative turn.
But as the government enters the second year of its four-year mandate, it’s making decisions that have the potential to disappoint some of its new supporters, according to a new national poll released by CBC News.
Over the last quarter, the Liberals have averaged 47.9 per cent support in national polls, a marginal gain over the previous quarter but up 8.4 points compared to election night. The Conservatives have averaged 28.7 per cent, down 3.2 points from the election, while the New Democrats have slipped 7.1 points to just 12.6 per cent support nationwide.
While the shifts in support since the previous quarter are insignificant, they are nonetheless consistent. The Conservatives have nudged downwards in two quarters and this is the fourth consecutive quarter in which support for the NDP has dropped. The Liberals have been the beneficiaries, as they have made gains in every quarter since last year’s election.
The lack of a permanent leader in three of the four opposition parties — Elizabeth May of the Green Party is the sole exception — could be making things easier for the Liberals, but it’s not a given that leaderless opposition parties always take a big hit in the polls.
Nowhere have the Liberals seen a notable shift in support since the last quarter, but that just means the party continues to hold on to the gains it made in the immediate aftermath of the last election — the so-called honeymoon.
The biggest gains have been in Quebec, where the Liberals averaged 50.4 per cent over the past three months. That’s up nearly 15 points from their election performance, when the party won 40 of 78 seats in the province.
The Liberals also continue to lead comfortably in B.C., averaging 45.8 per cent over the last quarter. But those gains, which came primarily from the New Democrats, could be at some risk with the government’s recent decision to approve the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Opposition to the project is greatest in B.C., and the issue could be what New Democrats need to claw back some of the support among progressives they’ve lost to the Liberals over the last year.
The Liberals’ handling of the electoral reform file — an issue that polls tend to show is more important to progressives — could also jeopardize some of the gains they’ve made nationwide (the party is still up around six points in Alberta, the Prairies and Ontario).
The Conservatives are down almost uniformly in most parts of Canada since the election. They have slipped 3.1 points in Alberta, 3.5 points in both Ontario and Quebec, 3.6 points in B.C. and 4.4 points in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
The party still holds a lead in Alberta, however, with 56.5 per cent, and is polling only a few points behind the Liberals in the Prairies.
