It’s that time of year again folks. Our friends at Angus Reid have taken the pulse of the nation, as they do quarterly, to see how we feel about our premiers.
The survey was conducted from January 7 to 12, 2022.
And as it has for the past couple of years, popularity continues to ride on how people feel their leaders have handled the COVID-19 pandemic, and all the things that come with that such as testing availability, vaccine rollout etc.
Overall, only four premiers have majority approval; Tim Houston of Nova Scotia has 57 per cent approval, Francois Legault of Quebec hangs in at 55 per cent approval, despite the province having made by far the most restrictive measures to control the pandemic. John Horgan in B.C. continues to have fairly high approval at 54 per cent. Horgan has wisely kept himself in the background, allowing Dr. Bonnie Henry to be the face of government response in British Columbia. Now part of that is that he has been working from home recovering from cancer treatments for the past few months, and we are pleased to see the announcement last week that he will be returning to work. However, even before his diagnosis, Dr. Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix were handling the daily press conferences. But, Horgan is getting some criticism over the scarce availability of rapid testing in B.C. He does get higher marks on vaccine booster distribution, after a somewhat slow start.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s Andrew Furey has a 51 per cent approval rating, the only other premier on the positive side.
And now for the less fortunate premiers.
Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe has an approval rating of 45 per cent, up a small two per cent since the last poll. With the Omicron wave surging, Saskatchewan has not followed the rest of the country in limiting indoor gatherings. Moe’s popularity has decreased from 61 per cent approval in June of 2021 to 45 per cent now. Still the Saskatchewan Party is getting high marks for availability of rapid tests and boosters. However, Saskatchewan has the second lowest vaccinated rate of any provide aside from Alberta.
And speaking of Alberta, the good news from Premier Jason Kenney is that his approval is up four points. The bad news is that it sits at 26 per cent. That’s up from a dismal 22 per cent in October, 2021. He gets bad marks for overall handling of the pandemic, although a majority of Albertans say he’s done a good job of distributing vaccines. But, Alberta has the lowest vaccination rate of all the provinces. Alberta also has higher deaths from the virus per capita than B.C and Ontario.
And in Ontario, Premier Doug Ford continues to take a beating on his handling of the pandemic. Ford is down six points to 30 per cent approval; better than Kenney but nothing to brag about. And it’s an election year in Ontario, so that has to be a concern, It has been almost a year since Ford’s approval was this low. Part of it is just pandemic fatigue. People are tired of online school and business shutdowns. But other provinces are putting restrictions in place as well, yet Ontarians seem to blame Ford for it more than others. Ford’s government does get good marks on vaccine distribution but lower marks the availability of testing.
Quebec’s Legault also faces an election this year, but with his higher approval rating, he can probably rest a little easier. This poll was taken before Legault made the controversial announcement that he plans to tax those who will not be vaccinated, so it remains to be seen if that will have an effect.
But overall, Quebecers just don’t seem to be blaming their Premier for restrictions the way the good folks in Ontario are blaming Ford. The answer may be simple consistency. Legault has been fairly consistent in his pandemic response from day 1 while Ford has been more up and down, at first resisting some restrictions, then bowing to their necessity. Sending mixed messages to voters is not usually effective.