Could Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine supply be key to an early election call?

Canada may be going through the darkest days of the pandemic, but in the backrooms of the federal Liberal Party, a sliver of light slices through the gloom.

The latest opinion polls show resilient support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his governing Liberals.

Despite the country’s difficulties, the Liberals hold a five-point lead over the second-place Conservatives in the latest Angus Reid Institute survey.

The Liberals are backed by 35 per cent of decided voters, the Conservatives are at 30 per cent and the New Democrats are in third place at 20 per cent, the poll suggests.

Of course, a five-point gap can be erased quickly in the course of an election campaign. And the Conservatives can take some solace that the gap could be closer than it appears when you consider the poll’s margin of error (plus or minus 2.5 percentage points).

But the Liberals are no doubt giddy at some of the finer details in the numbers.

Consider the widening gender gap in Canadian politics.

“The Liberal Party is bolstered by strong support from women,” the pollster under-stated, noting an astonishing 28-point lead for the Liberals over the Conservatives among women voters ages 35 to 54.

The Liberals hold a big lead in other female age brackets too, including a 20-point lead among women voters ages 18 to 34. The lead is only a bit smaller among older Canadian women, with the Liberals topping the Conservatives by 15 points among women 55 and older.

In contrast, Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives hold a lead among male voters, but the edge is not nearly as large.

O’Toole, meanwhile, is struggling to register positively with voters overall, the pollster reports.

2:28 Concerns growing over impact of EU vaccine export controls

• Concerns growing over impact of EU vaccine export controls
• Coronavirus: Fauci says U.S. needs to get vaccinated ‘when it becomes available’ despite variants
• How a made-in-Canada vaccine could bring hope for vaccine shortages
• Messaging on COVID-19 vaccine rollout ‘upsetting’ and ‘confusing’: CMA president
• COVID-19 vaccination clinics held on Downtown Eastside
• Vexing Vaccine Issues

Previous Video

Next Video

Nearly half of Canadian voters — 47 per cent — hold a negative view of the Conservative leader, a 16-point increase since last September.

Canadians remain split on their feelings toward Trudeau, but the Conservatives must be more concerned about the trend lines.

No wonder few people believe Trudeau when he says he doesn’t want an election.

“It’s not in our interests to have an election,” Trudeau told a Montreal radio station, while adding the caveat that an election is always possible in a minority parliament.

“Obviously, we are in a minority government and that could well happen,” he said.

His opponents are convinced that an election is exactly what Trudeau wants.

“I find it actually shocking that the prime minister of Canada, in the middle of a pandemic, could possibly be thinking of an election,” O’Toole told me, saying Trudeau should put the thought out of this mind.

“It’s time for the Liberal Party to start thinking of Canadians and not their own political skin,” he said.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh also said an election is a bad idea.

“The prime minister should be spending every single ounce of his effort making sure people get vaccines and are vaccinated,” Singh told me.

“That is the only job that the prime minister should be doing right now, not spending any time planning for an election.”

That’s easy for them to say. They both know the polls are clearly tempting to Trudeau, and both major opposition parties are preparing for a possible election they don’t want to fight.

“My military training and my time in business said you always have to be ready,” O’Toole said.

“We’ve got great volunteers and we’ve got more money than the Liberals. So I don’t want it, but my job is to be ready for all possibilities.”

Singh said he’s ready to rumble, too, if necessary.

“We are ready for it,” Singh told me.

“We’ve paid off our 2015 and our 2019 election debt. We’ve got money in the bank. We’re doing well and we are ready to fight. We just don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

Here’s the quandary for Trudeau. He is bearing up well in the polls, his opponents are struggling, and he appears to want an election.

But he risks a voter backlash if the public perceives a snap election as nothing but a Liberal power grab with COVID cases continuing to surge.

The other big risk for Trudeau is the disruption in the vaccine supply. Pollsters are reporting that Canadians are less than impressed with Trudeau’s vaccine rollout to date, and if the vaccine supply train doesn’t get back on track, Trudeau may decide against an election call this spring.

But if vaccines start to flow again, as international suppliers promise they will, I’d say Trudeau will be looking to trigger that election he insists he doesn’t want.

Mike Smyth is host of ‘The Mike Smyth Show’ on Global News Radio 980 CKNW in Vancouver and a commentator for Global News. You can reach him at mike@cknw.com and follow him on Twitter at @MikeSmythNews​.