Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s swing right appears to have his polling numbers going in the wrong direction.While the Conservatives still lead Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats and Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals, some of Hudak’s new policies seem to be hurting his party, the latest Forum Research survey shows.
The Tories are at 33 per cent, the NDP at 31 per cent, the Liberals at 27 per cent, and the Greens led by Mike Schreiner are at 8 per cent.
In last month’s Forum poll, where the Grits received a bounce from McGuinty’s Oct. 15 resignation, the Tories were at 35 per cent, the Liberals 29 per cent, the NDP 27 per cent and the Greens at 8 per cent.
But Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said the most recent survey suggests that some of Hudak’s right-wing proposals are not resonating beyond his diehard supporters.
“He’s maintaining his base, but he hasn’t done much in the ‘horse-race’ in a few months. He’s down a little bit — he always has a problem where he can’t close the deal,” said Bozinoff.
“They’re trying to connect with urban Ontario, which is their problem (area), but there’s just something not quite right about it.”
For example, only about a third — 34 per cent — of respondents believe compulsory union dues should be outlawed while 45 per cent disagreed with that plan and 21 per cent were unsure.
However, 71 per cent approve of making unions disclose all their financial transactions, including support for political parties and advocacy campaigns, compared with 16 per cent who disagreed and 13 per cent who were unsure.
And Hudak’s pitch to allow non-unionized employees to compete against unionized civil servants for public service jobs was endorsed by 57 per cent and opposed by 27 per cent with 16 per cent undecided.
His health policies, though, were panned in the poll of 990 people that was taken Monday using interactive voice-response telephone technology and is considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Only 8 per cent of respondents agreed that Community Care Access Centres should be shut down with 61 per cent opposed and 31 per cent uncertain.
About one in six — 16 per cent — embraced his plan to close local health integration networks with 36 per cent disagreeing and 48 per cent not sure.
Bozinoff said a lot of the Tory planks are “just not authentic enough for people in urban areas,” which is bad news for a party with a caucus made up of mostly rural MPPs.
Still, Hudak insisted Thursday that his proposals are receiving “very positive” feedback from the Ontario public.
“We are getting a lot of positive response for our bold ideas. They are creating a lot of excitement out there. It is generating controversy? Sure. There will be those who opposed our changes,” he said.
There are some potential problems looming for Hudak in the New Year, warned Bozinoff.
The pollster said the minority Liberals will almost certainly get a bounce when they select a successor to McGuinty at a delegated convention at Maple Leaf Gardens on Jan. 25-27.
“With the Liberals, they’re like the surfers, they’ve got to catch that wave — and I’m pretty sure they only have one wave to catch and that’s’ right after the leadership.”
That means Ontarians could well be plunged into an election in 2013.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Robert Benzie and Richard J. Brennan
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