A new poll suggests that the Liberals have surged past the Conservatives as the most popular federal party in the country, even with Bob Rae as leader.
The poll, conducted by Forum Research, found that if an election were held today the Liberals would garner 33 per cent of the vote, the Tories 29 per cent and the NDP 25 per cent. The Green Party would capture six per cent of the votes of six per cent of the electorate while the Bloc Quebecois would pick up five per cent of the total vote.
Results like that, Forum says, would leave the Tories with a very tenuous minority government. The seat breakdown would look something like:
- Conservatives 119
- Liberals 117
- NDP 65
- Bloc 6
- Green Party 1
But the numbers change drastically with Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader. The poll found that the Liberals would surge to 40 per cent of the vote while the Conservatives would slip to 28 per cent. The NDP would take the biggest hit, tumbling to 21 per cent of the vote. Five per cent of voters would go for the Greens while six per cent would choose the Bloc.
The poll also found that with Trudeau as leader, 18 per cent of those who voted Conservative in the last election would switch to the Liberals. Among NDP voters in the last election, 35 per cent would opt for the Trudeau-led Liberals.
“People are feeling like there’s room for them within the Liberal party and even within politics,” Trudeau said Thursday during an appearance on Global’s The Morning Show. “I’m trying to make sure Canadians take over the Liberal party. We’ve gotten to be a party that has been far too turned-in, far too focused on its internal squabbling rather than being focused on the future of Canadians.
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Forum says the numbers would leave the Liberals with 166 seats in a 308-seat Parliament.
“Well, that makes it official; the Liberals are the favoured party in Canada, and Canadians have already baked into their assessments that Justin Trudeau will be leader in two weeks, and found it good. Increasingly, the NDP looks like the third party in waiting,” Forum Research president, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff said in a news release.
The Liberals are expected to choose Trudeau as their next leader in a party vote on April 14. He’s expected to win the race after his closes rival, Marc Garneau, dropped out and threw his support behind Trudeau.
Trudeau said Canadians are anxious for change despite weathering global economic turmoil under a Conservative government.
“We’ve weathered the storm because of smart decisions by Liberal governments in the ’90s to slay the deficit and to not deregulate our banks the way the opposition leader at the time, Stephen Harper, wanted to,” he said. “We’ve got a good position in the global economy but at the same time Canadians are tired of the tone of politics these days. There’s a tremendous cynicism and negativity and an approach that’s about getting people to vote against things rather than voting for a vision.”
Trudeau said his mother expressed concerns that he was “too nice and too sensitive to be a ruthless politician” and said he’s ready to lead a party Canadians identify so closely with his late father.
“I am who I am. I’m incredibly proud of both my mom and my dad and where I come from,” he said. “I’ve been compared to my dad all my life and I’m proud of my dad and his values.”
The poll’s results are based on an interactive voice response telephone survey of 1,310 randomly selected Canadians 18 years of age and older. It was conducted on April 2, 2013 and the results are considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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