Remember back when Justin Trudeau promised that he would reform the way Canada votes, and we were all excited and then he broke that promise?
Yeah, I’m betting he really wishes he hadn’t done that now.
Why?
Because recent polling suggests that even though the Liberals have lost a lot of support over the winter and spring, those who plan to vote for the NDP or Green Party would list the Liberals as second choice.
Know what system could have really helped the Liberals if candidates were ranked?
Yeah, not the one we will be voting with in October.
Doh! Yep, let’s enjoy a heaping helping of Schaudenfreude for our Prime Minister. Back in the early, heady days of his majority, Trudeau and his team decided that they’d rather not mess with the system that brought them that majority, even though they’d said they’d look at proportional representation.
And then came SNC Lavalin. And down came the poll numbers. Maybe they should have made a different decision back then, but it’s too late now.
Let’s go inside the numbers with our good buddy Angus Reid shall we?
Now there is a little good news in recent polling for the Liberals, although the Conservatives still have the lead at 37 per cent of decided voters. The good news is that the long, steep slide the Liberals have been experiencing appears to be over. They are only at 26.5 per cent, but it appears to have bottomed out for now.
And while the Conservatives maintain their lead, the race is tightening in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
On the bad news side for the Liberals, when asked if there was a party they would never vote for, 33 per cent of voters said the Liberals.
However, before Conservatives begin to cheer that, 32 per cent of voters answered Conservative when asked the same question.
That’s a statistical dead heat of disdain.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May is the only federal leader who gets a positive approval rating. 53 per cent like the job she’s doing,
Other interesting findings in the poll are that the Conservative lead is almost entirely generational. It’s older voters who like the Conservatives, while younger voters tend to go for more left leaning parties. This is great for the Conservatives for the next while, because older voters are always the largest turnout at the polls. However, that’s a problem down the road. The Conservatives have got to find a way to appeal to younger voters or risk extinction.
And here’s another interesting piece of info that shows what a deeply conflicted nation we are.
Canadians consider climate change a really big deal. We are willing to make lifestyle changes to fight it. But we are not willing to pay extra taxes to help fight it. Not even as little as $100 per year.
That’s what 32 per cent of respondents told a CBC News poll. And again, the younger the voter, the more likely they are to say they’d pay more to combat climate change.
Overall 43 per cent of respondents support the carbon tax compared to 47 per cent opposed.
One good stat out of this survey is that the number of climate change deniers has dropped to only six per cent of the population, which I guess is good.
But it does beg the question, what exactly has to happen to take that six per cent down to zero?