Most voters still say Trudeau should resign — and expect an election in 2024

A majority of Canadians again said in December that it’s time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step aside from this role and as leader of the Liberal Party, but most don’t believe he will do it.

And over half of Canadians think there will be an election next year.

The new polling done by Ipsos exclusively for Global News found that 69 per cent of Canadians feel Trudeau should resign as Liberal leader and prime minister. The finding comes after earlier polling by Ipsos for Global News done between Nov. 14 and 17 suggested 72 per cent of Canadians felt the same, marking a three-point decrease in the sentiment but within the poll’s margin of error.

Ipsos CEO Darrell Bricker said they followed up with respondents on why they think Trudeau should step aside. He said that while some just never liked the prime minister to begin with, things got more interesting when past Liberal voters shared their thoughts.

“When you start poking away at it among people who actually say they voted for him or supported him in the past, their view is one or two things. One is his time has come and gone. He’s given a service and it’s really Canada just needs a change,” Bricker said.

“And then there’s another group among his supporters that say, not this time, because I don’t think he can win and we need to do whatever we can to stop Pierre Poilievre.”

2:12 3 in 4 Canadians think Trudeau should step down now: poll

There is regional unity among the consensus that Trudeau should go, according to Bricker. While he says this has historically been the case in the Prairies and parts of B.C., the sentiment is seeping into areas traditionally more favourable to the Liberals.

“What we’re seeing now is this has seeped into Ontario and Quebec and even in Atlantic Canada,” Bricker said.

“This time around it just seems like people are either tired or they don’t think he’s got what it takes in order to be able to defeat his opponents.”

While almost seven in 10 Canadians think Trudeau should step down, 63 per cent see that as being unlikely according to the poll.

Trudeau has remained steadfast that he intends to lead the Liberals into the next election whenever he’s been asked about the topic.

Lori Turnbull at Dalhousie University says there’s likely not too much worry in the Liberal tent with the next election not scheduled until fall 2025 and the supply-and-confidence deal with the NDP still intact. However, if this trend endures, she says it will be harder to shift their electoral fortunes.

“We are in this world of wedge politics where it’s very much about the person, it’s very much about, ‘You’re on my team or you’re not,’” Turnbull said.

9:00 As 2023 parliamentary sitting ends, can PM Trudeau turn slumping poll numbers around?

“So, when the person’s brand sours, it’s harder for voters to pivot because if they were in the party because of the person, because of that brand, where do you go if you don’t like that brand? It doesn’t mean you’re going to like somebody else’s brand.”

Canadians appear to expect to go to the polls next year, with 59 per cent thinking an election is likely in 2024. Only 29 per cent don’t think this will be the case and the remaining 13 per cent said they don’t know if there will be a vote.

This Ipsos poll was conducted between December 8th to 11th, 2023, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.