AS the federal election gets underway, it appears that the Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are most likely to form the next government. The vote takes place on October 21.
According to the latest Nanos Tracking Poll (September 6), when Canadians were asked whether they would consider voting for each of the federal parties, 48.7 per cent said they would consider voting Liberal, while 39.3 per cent of said they would consider voting Conservative.
One in three (36.2%) would consider voting NDP, 35.4 per cent would consider voting Green, 10.2 per cent would consider voting for the People’s Party and 31 per cent would consider voting for the Bloc Quebecois.
Nanos had Trudeau as the preferred choice as Prime Minister at 33.6 per cent of Canadians, followed by Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer (22.7), Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (8.1%), NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh (7.4%) and People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier (2.4%). Twenty-four per cent of Canadians were unsure whom they preferred.
Close to half of Canadians (47.2%) believe Trudeau has the qualities of a good political leader, while 39 per cent believe Scheer has the qualities of a good political leader.
Four in 10 (39.2%) believe May has the qualities of a good political leader, while 28.4 per cent say the same about Singh. One in seven (15.7%) believe Bernier has the qualities of a good political leader, while 27.8 per cent said BQ Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has the qualities of a good political leader (Quebec only).
Scheer’s ‘can you trust Justin Trudeau?’ strategy will really not help his party as polls have shown that Canadians aren’t obsessed with the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Also, Scheer’s personality has been a big drawback for the Conservatives. He just fails to inspire Canadians.
On the other hand, the NDP remains far behind in the polls and can only hope to get enough seats so that they can support a possible Liberal minority government and bargain with it.
However, NDP supporters are quite likely to desert their party once again to make sure that Scheer’s Conservatives do not form the next government.
The first leaders’ debate will take place on Thursday night in Toronto where Maclean’s/CityTV are holding a televised debate. However, Trudeau has decided not to participate in it. But Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May will be taking part in it.
According to the Globe and Mail, the reason why Trudeau doesn’t want to have too many debates is that the Liberals “want to limit their leader’s exposure to political peril by curtailing the length of the campaign and depriving the other party leaders of too many occasions to share the stage. That’s a decision made by a one-term incumbent government that sits astride a strong economy and sees itself as a front-runner, but whose leader is vulnerable to attacks related to ethical lapses.”
The Liberals had 177 MPs in the 338-seat House of Commons. The others: the Conservatives had 95 MPs, the NDP had 39 MPs, the Bloc Quebecois had 10 MPs, and the Green Party had two MPs. Also, there was one People’s Party of Canada MP, one Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MP, eight independents and five vacant seats.
