TORONTO – Populous Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his federal Liberals are still enjoying their honeymoon as voter support among a large base of Canadians appears to be enduring in the polls.
The Liberals continue to hold the new support they captured after their majority victory in last fall’s federal election, when they pulled votes away from both the Conservatives and New Democrats, reported CBC News.
Justin Trudeau’s own popularity also remains high, with approval ratings well above those of both of his main rivals, interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose and outgoing NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, as well as the ratings he posted before last year’s vote.
Over the last three months of polling, the Liberals have averaged 46.7 per cent support. That’s an increase of 7.2 points over their performance in the Oct. 19 election and nearly even (up 0.1 points) from their average support during the previous quarter of federal polling calculated three months ago.
The Conservatives have averaged 29.1 per cent, also unchanged from where they were in the previous quarter but down 2.8 points from the last election.
The New Democrats, after taking 19.7 per cent of the vote last fall, have averaged just 13.6 per cent support. That’s down 6.1 points from the last election and one point from the previous quarter.
The Greens have averaged 5.1 per cent support since March, while the Bloc Québécois has averaged 4.2 per cent.
The Liberals’ support has held relatively steady across the board — notable considering that their polling numbers between December 2015 and February 2016 had all the hallmarks of the normal political honeymoon of a new government.
But the party has nevertheless seen further gains in some parts of the country, particularly in British Columbia. The party is up 10.3 points from the last election, leading in the province with 45.4 per cent support, and has gained 2.6 points over the last quarter alone.
The Liberals’ most significant increase since the last election remains in Quebec, where the party has gained 12.2 points since the last election and sits at 47.9 per cent. That level of support is largely unchanged from where they were in the previous quarter.
In Ontario and the Prairies, the Liberals have also posted gains since both the election and the last quarter. They lead comfortably in Ontario with 50.7 per cent support and trail the Conservatives narrowly in Saskatchewan and Manitoba with 39.6 per cent.
