Half of Canadians Unhappy with both PM and Ignatieff

Even though Canadians are unhappy polls do not show much movement away from the two party system to the NDP, Greens, or other parties. I have never understood why this is so. A lot of people claim that a vote for a third party is wasted at least in areas where third parties will not win. Strangely enough one does not hear that about voting Liberal in an area that is sure to see a Conservative win or vice versa. Some people want to be on the winning side and end up voting for a person whose policies may be quite different than the person who votes for the person just to be on the winning side.

These polls ensure that Harper is safe from an election this Spring unless he provokes Ignatieff to such a degree that he has to vote against the government. Of course it is always possible that Harper could do something that makes him quite vulnerable but his close calls last year and late 2008 should teach him to be a bit more cautious.

Half of Canadians unhappy with PM, Ignatieff: poll

CBC News
(EKOS)
More than half of Canadians disapprove of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s job performance, but nearly as many feel the same way about Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, a new EKOS poll suggests.

The poll, released exclusively to CBC News on Thursday, asked Canadians if they approve of the way Harper, Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton are handling their respective jobs.

Around 52 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they disapprove of the way Harper is handling his job, and 48 per cent said they disapprove of Ignatieff’s job performance.

But more people in the survey approved of Harper’s performance than Ignatieff's (33 per cent to 22 per cent).

Thirty per cent had no opinion about Ignatieff's job abilities, while 15 per cent had no opinion of Harper's.

Layton was the only leader with a positive job-approval rating, with 40 per cent of those polled saying they approve of the job he is doing and 29 per cent disapproving.

Despite Harper's slightly higher disapproval rating, the Conservatives have opened up a small three-point lead over the Liberals after weeks of being in a virtual tie, another EKOS poll suggests.

Asked which party they would support if an election were held tomorrow, 33.4 per cent of those polled chose the Conservatives and 30.3 per cent backed the Liberals.

While Layton has the highest approval ratings, his party remains in third place with 15.8 per cent support and lags considerably behind the other two parties, the poll indicates.

Harper gets overwhelming approval among Conservatives who were surveyed, but his disapproval rating is almost as high among supporters of each of the other parties.

Disapproval of Harper is about the same among men (51.8 per cent) and women (51.5 per cent) who were surveyed and among similar among age groups, with the exception of Canadians 65 and over, who are more split on whether they approve or disapprove.

Disapproval of Ignatieff is highest in the survey among Conservative supporters (71 per cent), men (52 per cent) and older Canadians (45 to 64 at 50.5 per cent, and 65 and older at 50.8 per cent).

The random survey of 6,553 Canadians aged 18 and over was conducted between Feb. 10 and Feb. 23 and claims a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/25/ekos-poll.html#ixzz0gkPLZP0d

Conservatives still lead Liberals by ten percentage points.

The movements do not seem large towards any party although the Conservatives seem a bit better in Quebec. In some of the western provinces the NDP seems to be picking up a bit. Within a week however there is not likely to be much change. Certainly the Liberals are now as quiet as can be about bringing down the Conservatives! Ignatieff just does not seem to be doing anything much to improve Liberal fortunes. The strategy must be to rely on Harper defeating himself by some missteps. But Harper is a seasoned politician and perhaps he has learned a little from past missteps. He hasn't as yet used his lead to taunt the Liberals into a position where they cannot back out. This is from CBC.



EKOS Weekly: Ooh, look - it's a perfect ten!
By Kady O'Malley
A perfect ten point lead that the Conservatives have over their nearest rivals, that is, which is still the Liberals, just to be clear. We've almost hit that point in the narrative cycle during which the occasional pundit will start to predict that within a year, the prophecy will have come to pass and the NDP will leapfrog the Liberals to take over second place -- which, of course, as far as certain western provinces go, has already happened in the recent and not so recent past, is happening right now, and will almost certainly keep happening, on an on again off again basis. So far, it hasn't yet resulted in an irreparable rent to the fabric of the political universe, but hey -- you never know.


But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, the top line numbers, so often imbued with grave portent despite the fact that they may as well be the product of a random pi sequence generator without the accompanying regional breakdowns:


Conservatives: 36.6 (-0.8)
Liberals: 26.6 (-0.2)
NDP: 16.8 (+0.5)
Green: 11.2 (+1.2)
Bloc Quebecois (in Quebec): 35.6 (-2.0)
Undecided: 16.6 (+0.6)


Yeah, not much change from last week, really. Both front-runner parties went down -- the Conservatives by nearly a full percentage point, the Liberals by a more modest, but undoubtedly still slightly Donoloian hope-deflating 0.2 percent. The NDP fortunes, meanwhile, rose by a half percent pickup, although like every other change between this week and last, that is, of course, well within the margin of error. Still, you know which side of that MoE a party would prefer to be on, given their druthers.


To find out just where the various parties are losing -- or, in a couple of cases, gaining -- steam, we have to turn to the regional breakdowns, of course. Therein, presumably, lies the tale -- or a tale, at least:


British Columbia (MoE 5.53)
Conservatives: 36.8 (-5.0)
NDP: 25.3 (-)
Liberals: 24.1 (+4.0)
Green: 13.8 (+1.0)


Alberta (MoE 5.59)
Conservatives: 58.2 (-4.6)
Liberals: 17.9 (+0.4)
Green: 12.3 (+2.4)
NDP: 11.6 (+1.8)


Saskatchewan/Manitoba (MoE 7.13)
Conservatives: 44.2 (-4.1)
NDP: 28.8 (+5.6)
Liberals: 16.3 (-3.3)
Green: 10.7 (+1.1)


Okay , let's interrupt this fascinating series of numbers to point out that -- hey, do you notice what may be the start of a trend out west? I mean, last week, we were all snickering -- yes, I said 'we', don't feign innocence, fellow armchair pollcrunchers -- over those soaring Liberal numbers in Alberta, but honestly, if you were to present these results to a just-arrived interplanetary delegation of intelligent alien lifeforms, and ask them what their first thought was, they'd politely observe out that these "Conservatives" appear to be on the verge of maybe possibly eventually having a teeny tiny problem out west.


Although really, given the geographically quirky nature of Canadian politics, and the way the votes split, the fact that both the NDP and the Liberals are gaining, and holding, respectively does not necessarily augur future electoral unpleasantness for the government. Well, except in those ridings -- like, for instance, decent-sized chunks of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba -- where the Liberals are firmly out of contention, and a configuration like this could actually result in the Conservatives losing a few seats to the NDP. (I'd advise against explaining all this to the alien delegation, by the way; it's hard enough for the rest of us to get our heads around the concept, and we haven't even gotten to Quebec.)


Really, though, Alberta. Oh, Alberta. What's gotten into you lately? The Conservatives have been consistently polling below their usual 60 percent for weeks. Are you taking your discontent with Ed Stelmach out on poor Stephen Harper? Have you confused the Green Party with the Wild Rose upstart, given that both have botanically-themed names? If you keep this up, Alberta might actually become interesting on a federal level, which hasn't happened in -- possibly ever.


Alright, back to your regularly scheduled stream of raw numbers, followed by my thoughts:


Ontario (MoE 3.00)
Conservatives: 39.2 (-0.4)
Liberals: 33.8 (+0.2)
NDP: 15.5 (-0.3)
Green: 11.6 (+0.6)


Quebec (MoE 3.45)
Bloc Quebecois: 35.6 (-2.0)
Conservatives: 21.7 (+2.1)
Liberals: 21.3 (-3.0)
NDP: 10.7 (-0.3)
Green: 10.6 (+3.0)


Atlantic Canada (MoE 6.93)
Conservatives: 36.5 (+3.1)
Liberals: 32.8 (-0.1)
NDP: 25.3 (+0.4)
Green: 5.5 (-3.3)


Not much going on in Ontario, really -- a barely imperceptible decline for the Conservatives and the NDP; a statistically insignificant upward blip for the Liberals and the Green Party.


Quebec is, at least, a soupcon more interesting -- the Conservatives are back at the high point of their traditional high teens/low twenties territory, and the Liberals have slid again, but the most noteworthy number is that of the Bloc Quebecois, which -- what with this, and that unfortunate byelection result in Riviere du loup -- may be forced to start actually campaigning, instead of just showing up on election day to collect their winnings.


That said, remember how mercurial the splits can be out west? Well, it's sort of the same in Quebec, only the rule of thumb tends to favour Team Sovereignty when there are two (or more) federalist options of relatively equal strength, so perhaps Gilles Duceppe can keep doing whatever it is he does while the other party leaders are fretting and fussing.


And finally, there is Atlantic Canada, which, up until fairly recently, appeared to be the last bastion of stalwart Liberal support in the country, yet now seems to be a three(ish) way race. Without more detailed provincial breakdowns -- and yes, I know that's not feasible, what with the incalculably huge margin of error that would result -- it's impossible to know whether this represents an overall warming of sentiment towards the Conservatives out east, or if New Brunswick is turning into a tiny, Maritime-themed Alberta, but still. Any way you slice it, there's no good news for the Liberals here.


Alright, those are my musings -- you can rebut them, or post your own in the comments, with bonus points for not being boringly partisan!


Oh, and just an administrative note: this week's bonus round is all about H1N1. To be honest, I'm not sure if it really tells us anything new -- Canadians seem to be distinctly underwhelmed by the performance of the government their governments thus far, and are split on whether to be vaccinated or not -- but if you find anything noteworthy in the data, feel free to share it.

Liberals take small lead in federal poll.

This is from UPI.

Even journalists have adopted the practice of calling mildly left parties "socialist" although they have nothing to do with socialism. When did you last hear a New Democrat call for the socialisation of the major means of production distribution and exchange. In Saskatchewan you had the NDP privatising crown corporations and then screaming when the Sask. Party was about to be elected that they -the Sask Party--would privatise more crown corporations. Although the NDP sometimes complains about privatisation you do not hear a thing about taking privatised corporations back into the public domain.
Ignatieff claims he has put the Conservatives on probation. It will be interesting if he decides that the Conservatives have flunked or broken the terms of their probation or if he will pull a Dion era stunt. I expect the latter although he might just move a motion of non-confidence and let the dimwitted NDP fall on their sword and commit suicide by supporting the Conservatives. The NDP does not want an election because the polls--except in Nova Scotia!--are not that favorable for them. Maybe Layton can repeat the Liberal refrain used in Dion times that Canadians do not want an election, especially in summer.


Poll: Canadian Liberals take small leadPublished: June 11, 2009 at 8:42 AM
With a Canadian federal election possible this year, the Liberal party has taken a lead over the minority Conservative government, a poll indicated Thursday.The EKOS poll of 6,259 adults was conducted May 29 through June 9 for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. It found the Liberals under leader Michael Ignatieff had 35 percent support to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives with 30.3 percent.Prior to last October's federal election, Conservatives had a 12-point lead, the CBC said.Among the other three parties, the socialist New Democratic Party had 15.1 percent support, the Green Party 10.4 percent and the separatist Bloc Quebecois 9.2 percent, the poll said.The poll had a 1 percent margin of error, EKOS said.In January, the Liberals agreed not to force an election with a non-confidence vote on the Conservative budget on the condition Parliament was given a series of "report cards" on how the government was dealing with the recession.Harper was scheduled to deliver the first of the reports Thursday and faces the possibility of being voted down.© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights