ipolitics
by Frank Graves
Saturday, March 21, 2015
The Liberals have bounced back to 32 points in this week’s poll, while the Conservatives have dropped to 30, their lowest point so far this year. It’s a net four-point shift for the Conservatives — from a two-point lead to a two-point deficit.
But it’s too early to make any predictions based on these numbers; Stephen Harper’s party is not far off its average showing for the past few months. The NDP is at 21 points and seems to be holding steady.
Regionally, the key battleground of Ontario is turning into an interesting race. The Liberals have opened up a small but statistically significant lead. Quebec, once the scene of a tight battle between the Liberals and NDP, has turned into a highly unpredictable four-way race — with the NDP, Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Québécois all within four points of each other.
Meanwhile, the Liberals have opened up a surprising lead in Manitoba. While the small sample size here confounds a more meaningful analysis, a net 35-point shift is statistically significant and we believe that something is going on in the province. Atlantic Canada remains a Liberal stronghold while Alberta remains firmly in the hands of the Conservatives. The Liberals have improved their standing in British Columbia, but the province is highly fluid and we recommend against reading too deeply into the week-to-week movements here.
Until quite recently it appeared the prime minister enjoyed a polling advantage on the values front, while many Canadians appeared to be heading down a path of increased cultural intolerance, driven in part by the political debate around terrorism, immigration and cultural accommodation. That advantage appears to have slipped away; Canadians are now evenly split on whether it is Mr. Harper or Justin Trudeau who best represents their values. While this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen the two leaders in a statistical tie, the timing of this shift suggests that something very real is happening.
Last week, we reported that Canadians’ sense of optimism about their economic prospects was at an all-time low. This week we look backwards — and the picture is every bit as grim. Just one Canadian in seven now feels a sense of having moved ahead economically over the past year. And just one in five reports having moved ahead since Mr. Harper formed his majority government.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan campaigned on a simple but powerful question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Canadians are beginning to ask themselves the same question — and a lot of them don’t like the answer. As focus tilts away from questions of culture, immigration and terrorism, it will become increasingly difficult to keep attention away from the economy. Mr. Harper may very well decide to shift gears and focus on the economic growth Canada has enjoyed under his leadership — a narrative that could be a difficult sell for a public that hasn’t seen a substantial wage increase in decades.