No Fall Election?

Perhaps Ignatieff wants to wait and see if he will ever get poll numbers near a majority; otherwise, it would seem he would rather work with the Conservatives than the Bloc and NDP. The Liberals are no real alternative to the Conservatives just more of the same but a little bit slower perhaps in moving to the right. Both Ignatieff and Harper are pro-US and will make sure that we lose more lives and spend more money to be junior partners in the U.S. empire building.
If anything Ignatieff is even more pro-US empire than Harper. The latter is just an admirer of the U.S. conservative movement whereas Ignatieff is a big fan of U.S. humanitarian imperialism so much so that he even supported the war in Iraq at first.

Summer poll could cool talk of election
TheStar.com -- Summer poll could cool talk of election

July 30, 2009
Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA–The political rhetoric is still flying, but are Canadians listening?

A survey by Angus Reid Strategies for the Toronto Star shows the federal Liberals with 34 per cent support and the Conservatives with 33 per cent – a statistical dead heat. The result is a warning for any party thinking of plunging into a fall election: No wind of change is blowing across Canada.

The poll shows the shaky economy is still voters' top concern, despite a declaration by Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney that the recession is over, and no party's leader has clearly won the trust of a majority of Canadians on the issue.

If anything, Canadians trust Carney more than either Prime Minister Stephen Harper or his Liberal rival Michael Ignatieff to manage the economy, but Carney's trust ratings dropped after his suggestion the economy was finding its footing again.

Yesterday, cabinet ministers distanced the Conservatives from Carney's economic optimism.

"To say we're out of the woods – I don't think that's the position of our government," said Industry Minister Tony Clement.

"We're still focused on the economy. We're not focused on a fall election, quite frankly. That's what the Liberal leader of the Opposition is focused on, but that's not our focus. Our focus is the economy."

Still, politics, and not the economy, appeared to dominate the agenda, with Conservatives and Liberals trading accusations of political bad faith and skulduggery as the Tories concluded a summer caucus meeting yesterday.

Conservatives privately fanned a CTV report that suggested Liberals planted a false – and since retracted – story with a New Brunswick newspaper that the Prime Minister pocketed a communion wafer. The Liberals called the suggestion nonsense, and pointed to a CPAC video of the incident as self-explanatory.

Publicly, the talk turned to employment insurance reform, on a day after statistics showed a sharp spike in claims for jobless benefits.

Human Resources Minister Diane Finley said Ignatieff is living in an "academic fantasyland" by clinging to a proposal to set 360 hours as the national standard for accessing unemployment benefits.

Finley is member of a bipartisan working group struck in June to study EI reform – part of a deal Harper worked out with Ignatieff to avert a summer election.

Ignatieff, who had suggested he'd be flexible on a national standard as long as EI was reformed, then slammed the Tories for failing to bring forward to the working group a single "serious" proposal to help the self-employed, as promised.

The Angus Reid poll offers little encouragement for such tough talk.

Conducted Monday and Tuesday, it shows public approval for the opposition Liberals stands at 34 per cent – an increase of four points from two weeks earlier.

The governing Conservatives' support held at the same level as two weeks ago at 33 per cent. The poll of 1,012 people has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, which means the two parties are in a virtual tie.

The NDP was at 16 per cent support, down two points. The Bloc Québécois was at 10 per cent and the Green party 7 per cent.

Meanwhile, Ignatieff's momentum score has dipped 5 points since early July. After Ignatieff took over leadership of the party last December and through the spring, his momentum grew as Harper's numbers dropped. Now, the poll shows Harper's momentum is holding steady.

"What we have seen in the summer is that Ignatieff's numbers have come back down to earth a little bit," said Jaideep Mukerji, a spokesman for the polling firm.



He said Ignatieff's honeymoon period appears to have ended, due in part to Tory attack ads and a poorly executed ultimatum over EI reforms as the parliamentary session ended.

According to the poll, slightly more people are unhappy with how the federal government has handled the economic crisis, but overall more Canadians still trust Harper to manage the economy over Ignatieff.

"With the numbers as they are, clearly no party is in a position to get a majority, and neither party seems to be able to get a clear advantage over the other," said Mukerji.

"It would be difficult for any of the parties to look at these numbers and think that they've got a great shot at really shaking things up."

With files from Joanna Smith


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