Premier’s approval rating drops
A significant number of Ontarians have turned against their province’s leadership, a poll released on Thursday found.
It revealed Premier Doug Ford’s approval rating has fallen 13 points since March, to 35 per cent.
The poll, carried out over the weekend by Maru Public Opinion, shows that just one out of every five people surveyed would vote for the Ford government in the next provincial election, expected in June 2022, while a third were unsure. The loss of confidence comes as the pandemic worsens in the province, with more than 800 patients in the ICU and hospitals being told to cancel elective surgeries.
The public is “as angry as a hornet’s nest right now,” said John Wright, executive vice-president of MPO. “Chaos is the thing that’s killing him.”
The damage, Wright noted, has been largely “self-inflicted.”
Ford held a news conference on Thursday morning, at times tearful and apologetic about his move to ban playgrounds and to ratchet up police powers to enforce a stay at home order.
The premier seemed “overwhelmed,” Wright said.
Ford also changed his mind on providing paid sick leave, which came after pleas from his public-health advisers, health-care workers and opposition parties.
Earlier in the pandemic, in June 2020, an MPO poll found Ford’s approval rating was over 60 per cent. Since then “most people think that this government is in it for their own self interest,” Wright said.
Stepping back may help the premier since part of the issue is that he is “making decisions publicly and wearing every bit of it,” he said. “There’s no sunlight between him and what’s happening.”
However, the numbers still point out that it’s not over, Wright noted. Ford won a majority in 2018 with 40 per cent of the vote and the election is still more than a year away.
If he can motivate his supporters, Ford could translate that 35 per cent approval into enough votes and win again, Wright said.
“He needs to step out of the way, and he needs to let ministers in,” Wright said. “I would argue at this stage, he needs a complete refresher on the government. His ministers are probably exhausted as well.”
The message that Ontarians “all agree on” is that there “is no plan — it’s all reaction,” Wright added.
Another poll, also released Thursday by MPO, found 80 per cent of Ontarians believe the Ford government is “constantly in response mode” when it comes to fighting COVID-19.
“In 32 years, I’ve never seen a number where eight in 10 people think that a government is just flying by the seat of his pants, (and) I’ve asked that question before,” Wright said.
More than 60 per cent of Ontarians either “somewhat” (22 per cent) or “very much” (40 per cent) disapprove of the way the Ford government has responded to the COVID crisis, the poll also found. Only three of out every 10 people surveyed believed the premier was making decisions at the advice of the province’s medical advisers.
Out of all current premiers, Ford is the least popular in recent MPO polling, behind Jason Kenney (39 per cent) of Alberta and Brian Pallister (37 per cent) of Manitoba, Wright said, adding at the top of the list was Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, with 65 per cent support.
“If you have chaos when something means life or death, then you’re going to lose a lot of people — from your voting base, but also in real life.”
The first poll surveyed 815 Canadian adults out of Maru’s online panel of 400,000 people and has an estimated margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 per cent, 19 times out of 20. The results were weighted using census figures to resemble the population.