The NDP is now tied with its ideological rival, the Conservative Party, for voter support across Canada even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his troops won a majority government in last year's federal election, the survey conducted for The Gazette and Le Devoir by Léger Marketing reveals.
If an election were held today, the NDP would nab 26 per cent of the vote, compared with 25 per cent for the Conservative Party, the poll of 1,506 Canadian adults shows. That puts the two parties in a statistical tie, the polling firm says.
"It's a very polarized choice," Sébastien Dallaire, research director in public affairs for Léger Marketing, said, adding it's the first time the firm has polled the Conservatives and NDP in a dead heat. The tie confirms a trend in other recent polls by other firms, he added.
"It's not choosing between two different shades of grey, but you definitely have two different colours in front of you." The NDP comes out with 33 per cent of voter intention and the Conservatives with 32 per cent when the percentage of undecided, unwilling to vote and unwilling to answer are distributed among all the parties, the poll finds.
The Liberal Party is a distant third at 19 per cent, unchanged since it took 18.9 per cent of the vote in the May 2011 election. The Green Party places fourth at eight per cent, roughly where it has polled in the past outside of elections, Dallaire said.
"We see that support for the Conservatives is ... down nearly eight points since the last election," he said. "So it's a fairly significant drop for them."
The Conservatives' tumble began a couple of months ago, he said, adding the timing coincides with public discontent over such things as revelations of fraudulent robocalls pretending to come from Elections Canada and, just this week, revelations of a major cost overrun in the F-35 fighter jet program that was kept quiet before the last election.
The poll was conducted between April 2 and 4. The margin of error is 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
The next federal election is three years away.
The NDP finds its strongest support in three regions: Quebec, the Atlantic provinces and British Columbia. The Conservatives get their strongest support in Alberta and the other prairie provinces and Ontario.
The Liberal Party of Canada doesn't lead in any region. However, Dallaire noted the NDP's leadership campaign garnered attention lately. The Liberals are expected to select a new leader next year.
Not only has support for the Conservatives dropped nationally since last year's election victory, the Léger poll also finds that support for the NDP in Quebec has rebounded "in spectacular fashion" since January - beyond even its 2011 election results - since the party chose Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair as its new leader in late March. Support for the party has shot up 19 points since January, Dallaire said.
The NDP scores 47 per cent of support in Quebec in this poll, which is higher than the party's 42.9 per cent share of the vote in the province in the 2011 election.
The party, which is the official opposition in the House of Commons, took 30.6 per cent of the national vote in the election.
The Bloc Québécois places second in Quebec, with 29 per cent. The Liberals and Conservatives are down to 10 per cent each in the province.
That said, the poll results indicate Mulcair remains relatively unknown to voters outside of Quebec, he said.
Just over half of respondents across the country, or 51 per cent, answered "don't know" when asked if the NDP made a good choice by electing Mulcair party leader. Just 21 per cent of respondents within Quebec answered "don't know." The proportion hits 59 per cent in B.C., 62 per cent in Ontario and 70 per cent in the Prairies.
Over all, four in 10 respondents support the choice of Mulcair, while the proportion spikes to 74 per cent of respondents in Quebec saying the NDP made a good choice.
In fact, Mulcair's relative obscurity in the rest of Canada and Bob Rae's status as interim leader of the Liberal Party may help explain why the largest proportion of poll respondents, 38 per cent, answered "don't know" or refused to answer when asked which of the party leaders would make the best prime minister, Dallaire said.
Harper garnered 25 per cent support on that question, compared with 20 per cent for Mulcair and 12 per cent for Rae. Green Party leader Elizabeth May got five per cent.
Harper has scored higher around election time, but not much higher, Dallaire said. "It shows that Canadians have not necessarily warmed up to Stephen Harper over the years," he said.
Meanwhile, 58 per cent of Canadians identify themselves as either ideologically in the centre (26 per cent), centre-left (19 per cent) or centre-right (13 per cent), the poll found.
"We've often heard over the past few years that Canada shifted right and Canadians are now more rightwing," Dallaire said. However, the results show "this mushy middle of Canadian politics is still quite strong."
The largest proportion of selfdescribed right-leaning and rightwing Canadians is in Alberta (36 per cent), while the largest proportion of those saying they're left-leaning and left-wing is in Quebec (32 per cent).
About one-third of Canadians said they're in favour of the federal budget brought down by the Harper government in late March, showing strong support (70 per cent) for cutting government spending by $5.2 billion. However, two-thirds of respondents rejected the Harper government's plan to raise the age of eligibility for Old Age Security benefits to 67 from 65.
Original Article
Source: montreal gazette
Author: LINDA GYULAI
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