Recent developments in Canadian national politics -- be it Conservative cabinet missteps or attack ads against Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff -- have had almost no effect on voting intentions, a new poll has found.
"I don't think it's a question of (voters) tuning out. I think it's a bit of a holding pattern," pollster Peter Donolo told CTV.ca on Monday.
Conservatives have either trailed or been statistically tied with the opposition Liberals for months. "Ignatieff can't take it to the next level, but the Conservatives can't seem to get out of the ditch they're in," Donolo said.
Although Tory attack ads seem to be hurting Ignatieff's personal polling numbers, they don't appear to be hurting the Liberal party's popularity, he said.
The Strategic Counsel poll, conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail, found virtually the same national levels of support for the four major parties as in a similar poll conducted almost a month ago.
The Liberals maintain a slight lead over the Conservatives (change from May 6-10 poll in brackets):
- Liberals: 34 per cent (-1)
- Conservatives: 30 per cent (no change)
- NDP: 16 per cent (no change)
- Greens: 11 per cent (no change)
- Bloc Quebecois: 9 per cent (no change)
The margin of error for the national poll is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The Strategic Counsel sampled 1,003 voting-age Canadians between June 3 - 7.
The poll came after Ignatieff said on June 2 that his party will decide whether to attempt to bring down the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and leave the country fighting an election in mid-summer. Harper reacted by saying Canadians are not in the mood for an election, that they want action on the economy.
The Liberals have been trying to attack the government on the issue of competence, pointing to the problems with medical isotope production at the Chalk River nuclear facility and the travails of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt, whose press aide was fired after documents labelled secret were left at 麻豆影视' Ottawa bureau.
But these and other developments haven't stampeded voters in any particular region in any significant direction.
In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois holds a narrow but statistically insignificant lead over the Liberals, with 37 per cent support compared to 35 per cent for the Grits. Both parties dropped two points in support from the May poll.
The Conservatives are unchanged at nine per cent. The NDP lost a point, dropping to eight per cent, while the Greens gained three points, rising to 11 points in support.
"The Quebec numbers now are solid. There can now be no doubt that the Conservatives are in the position now where they would lose most, if not all of the 10 seats they hold in Quebec," he said.
Nationally, the Conservatives hold a three-point advance over the Liberals in the rest of Canada, leading 37 per cent to 34 per cent.
Battleground Ontario
In Ontario, the Tories have regained some ground, with their support rising to 35 per cent from 32 per cent in the May poll. However, they are still down from the 39 per cent support they enjoyed in the fall federal election.
The Liberals still hold a substantial lead with 44 per cent support in Canada's most vote-rich province, up two points from May. However, that is 10 points higher than the 34 per cent support the party obtained from Ontarians in the federal vote.
The NDP have dropped five points in Ontario, falling to 10 per cent support, while the Greens remain at 11 per cent support.
"If the Liberals are going to have a chance to win the next election, they really need to shrink that NDP vote, particularly in Ontario," Donolo said.
In the West, the Conservatives remain the dominant party with 41 per cent support, down one point from May -- and down 12 points from its federal election level.
The Liberals came in at 21 per cent, down four points from May, while the NDP gained six points. Its support level rose to 25 per cent.
The Greens lost two points of support in the West, falling to 13 per cent.
Regional subsamples are smaller, meaning the margin of error is higher:
- Quebec: 244 sampled, 6.3 percentage-point margin of error
- Rest of Canada: 759 sampled, 3.6 percentage-point margin of error
- Ontario: 384 sampled, 5 percentage-point margin of error
- West: 301 sampled, 5.6 percentage-point margin of error
People were reached by telephone using a random digit dialing procedure designed to compensate for unlisted numbers. The sampling was broken down by region and community size. It was weighted to replicate the sex and age distribution within regions as established by the 2006 Census.
