New poll has NDP heading for majority with 40% support, as Tories plummet,
Survey says Mulcair’s party has support of 40 per cent, while Tories drop to third
MONTREAL— The New Democratic Party has the backing of an unprecedented 40 per cent of Canadians, a level of support that could secure Thomas Mulcair a majority in the House of Commons, a new poll has found.
The Forum Research poll for the Toronto Star projects the NDP with enough support to win 174 seats in the Oct. 19 election. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals now sit in second place with 30 per cent support, while Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are losing support and have the backing of just 23 per cent of the 1,440 Canadians surveyed.
The poll, conducted on Sunday and Monday, may have captured both anger at the revelations emerging from testimony of Conservative officials at Sen. Mike Duffy’s fraud trial, as well as the recent stock market scare, which has heightened talk of a faltering Canadian economy, said Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff.
“Maybe you could say it’s a perfect storm for the Tories because they’re the ones who seem to have taken this on the chin,” he said. “We’ve said all along that if this economy goes south it’s over for the Tories. They’re in charge, they’re it and on top of that they’ve built a lot of their campaign around being great economic managers.” Harper’s campaign headaches seem to have benefitted the NDP, which now has 54 per cent support in Quebec, 41 per cent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and 39 per cent in British Columbia.
In Ontario, the province with the most seats in the House of Commons, Mulcair’s New Democrats lead with 36 per cent of respondents saying they would vote for the party. The Liberals are second with 33 per cent and the Tories have 26 per cent support.
“The strength of the NDP is pretty pervasive across age groups, across regions of the country,” Bozinoff said.
That is most apparent in Quebec, where the once-dominant sovereigntist Bloc Québécois is in third place behind the Liberals and just ahead of the Conservatives, and is projected not to win any seats in the Oct. 19 vote.
“If the BQ goes nowhere, that creates a serious, serious problem for the other two parties because a lot of the NDP seats are in Quebec and if (the Liberals and Conservatives) are writing Quebec off it’s hard for them to make any progress,” Bozinoff said.
“If you’re trying to get half the seats (in the House of Commons) and you’re writing off a quarter of the seats, there’s not a lot left and then you’ve got to share them with the other parties.”
Much could still change in the elec- tion race, which is expected to enter a more intensive phase as summer ends, vacations draw to a close and Canadians settle back into their usual school and work routines.
But that could also usher in more trouble for the Tories if the economic problems continue or if more revelations emerge from the influence peddling trial of former PMO adviser Bruce Carson, who is alleged to have leveraged his ties with the Conservative government for the benefit of a water purification company seeking federal contracts.
While the Conservative election message has been centred on the risks of inexperienced or highspending parties forming government, the New Democrats are keen to show a pattern of rule-breaking, be it related to election spending limits, improper expense claims, or actual violations of the law that un- dermine the promise of transparency and accountability that brought the Harper government to power in 2006.
Bozinoff said the poll results indicate the revelations of scandal, sleaze and politicking are causing core Conservative supporters to have second thoughts about their vote.
“The Tories have been steady at about 28 or 29 (per cent) for months or years even. That’s been their base. They’ve taken good care of their base with the gun registry and everything . . . Now the base is getting antsy,” he said, adding that much could still change in the more than seven weeks before voting day.
“We can’t write anybody off but the NDP are looking stronger day by day.”
The poll is considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.