A new poll conducted for The Canadian Press seems to show the cloud of the SNC-Lavalin controversy is lifting for the federal Liberals, who now face a closer fight with the Conservatives less than three months to go until the election.
In a web survey conducted earlier this month, the polling firm Leger found 36-per-cent support among decided voters for the Conservatives and 33 per cent for the Liberals.
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The firm says support for the Tories has dipped by two percentage points since the last time it conducted a survey in June, while support for the Liberals has gone up by four percentage points.
Leger’s executive vice-president Christian Bourque says some sunlight is starting to appear for the Liberals, who witnessed sliding poll numbers beginning in February, as Parliament Hill was rocked by a former justice minister’s claims that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaned on her to arrange a deal for SNC-Lavalin on criminal charges it faces.
The latest poll was conducted among about 1,500 Canadians who are eligible to vote and were randomly recruited from an online panel.
Leger says it cannot provide a margin of error for a web panel but for comparative purposes, it says a probability sample would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.