Strong support for Trudeau among Canada’s voters

TORONTO: A year prior to federal elections in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau enjoys strong support from potential voters for his Liberal Party, with nearly 80% “buoyant about the performance of its leader”.

In contrast, that percentage shrinks to below 50% for one of his principal rivals for the contest, New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh.

Andrew Scheer, leader of the Conservative Party, has strong support of nearly two-thirds of those leaning towards his party. These are among the findings of a national survey conducted by the not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation Angus Reid Institute (ARI).

According to the results of the ARI poll, 79% of Liberal supporters describe Trudeau as “good” or “very good” as a leader, while the comparative figures for Scheer and Singh are 65% and 47%, respectively.

In outlining the challenges that Indian-origin Singh faces in the 12 months to the national elections, the ARI report said these include the “task of igniting excitement and confidence, even among locked-in NDP voters who profess an allegiance to the party, but are ambivalent about their leader or his chances at the ballot box next year”.

The poll used a randomised sample of 1,500 Canadian adults, and split that into 500 potential supporters each of the major political parties for the analysis.

Nearly the same number of supporters of the Liberal and Conservative parties believe their leader is “setting the party up to win more seats in 2019”, while just about a third, 34%, “are confident about Singh’s ability to grow his party’s seat count next year”.

However, the news isn’t all rosy for Trudeau either as the poll found that “more Canadians are open to voting for the Conservatives and Andrew Scheer than any of the alternatives”.

Trudeau, though, has the advantage of being well-recognised in Canada while 30% of likely Conservatives don’t know enough about Scheer to describe him, and with Singh, that figure balloons to 46%. One year since he was elected leader of the NDP, in a historic feat, that will be among the main challenges before Singh as he prepares to lead the NDP into the October 2019 federal elections.

The first step could be being elected to the House of Commons, as he will contest a bypoll from Burnaby South, which is likely to take place in first quarter of 2019.