VICTORIA –One of Premier Gordon Campbell's major hurdles to winning a third term on May 12 may be himself, a new poll suggests.
The online Harris-Decima poll conducted exclusively for The Canadian Press found voter mistrust of Campbell was the second most important ballot issue next to the economy among respondents.
The poll is based on a survey of 1,000 British Columbians from April 27 to May 2.
Voters surveyed overwhelmingly ranked Campbell and his Liberals as their top choice when it comes to handling the No. 1 issue of the election, the economy, but the second most important issue was mistrust of Campbell.
Jeff Walker, a senior vice-president with Harris-Decima, said voter boredom with Campbell after eight years as premier and the ongoing B.C. Rail issue are likely reasons why the mistrust has risen to near the top for voters.
"Over time, becoming too familiar sometimes can be a difficult thing for a leader to face," Walker said.
'Premier Campbell has been the premier for a long time and that comes along with a certain amount of baggage where people just get tired with a person or are unhappy with a decision or two or three that they've made over the course of their leadership.'
The poll results are examples of the unique flavour of B.C. politics, said Jason Morris, a political science professor at the University of Northern B.C. in Prince George.
'You've got a premier saddled with an image, fair or not, of being a bit cold, and... maybe a bit too quick to judge and not listening, and you can have a party that manages the economy with a leader you don't like,' he said.
Campbell does not fit in with British Columbia's political tradition of populist premiers – WAC Bennett, Bill Vander Zalm, Glen Clark and Dave Barrett – but that's not his style, Morris said.
"Campbell has tried to be more of an administrator," he said. "To say I'm the fellow who wants to mind the store and you won't see me in blue leisure suits collecting velvet Elvis posters."
The question, he said, is: "Can you just continue on as Gordon Campbell knowing that not everybody loves you, but (voters) still are OK with you in charge?"
The poll found 48 per cent of decided voters surveyed named the economy as the most important issue. Mistrust of Campbell was second, at 22 per cent.
But when respondents were asked what issue would most influence their vote, 37 per cent said the party best able to handle the economy.
And 64 per cent of respondents rated Campbell either very capable or capable of handling the B.C. economy, which has slipped into recession after several years of record job growth and surplus budgets.
NDP Leader Carole James was way behind, with only five per cent of respondents saying she was very capable of handling the economy and a further 33 per cent saying she was fairly capable.
Like another recent polls, the Harris-Decima survey also suggests the Liberals and the NDP were in a neck-and-neck race, but there was a huge swath – some 28 per cent – of respondents who said they were still undecided with only days to go before voting day.
"The first thing (the poll) tells me is there's a lot of British Columbians who aren't quite sure exactly what they are going to do on voting day and that means that the result, probably, is still really up for grabs," Walker said.
And while voters struggle with supporting a premier they view as economically competent but not trustworthy, the New Democrats face a voter dilemma of their own, he said.
Environmental voters who traditionally lean towards the Green Party but end up voting New Democrat are now torn between voting NDP or Green on May 12, said Walker.
"Given the number of environmental initiatives that Gordon Campbell has pursued, it's hard to see why somebody who's a Green voter would feel so compelled to say, 'You know what, I need to stop Gordon Campbell.' It just doesn't have the same resonance that it might have in another circumstance," he said.
Campbell was first elected in 2001, but has been Liberal leader since 1993. He is, along with Premier Gary Doer of Manitoba and Quebec's Jean Charest, one of the longest-serving premiers in Canada.
Campbell consistently fought image issues during his early years in provincial politics. As Liberal Opposition leader in the mid-1990s and during his first term as premier after the 2001 election, he was portrayed as more comfortable in a boardroom or library than in front of a crowd.
Campbell was forced to show his emotional side after he was arrested for drunk driving in Maui in January 2003. He admitted the mistake during a public news conference but did not resign, and his support and popularity increased.
During the current campaign Campbell has been gregarious to the point where he makes it a point to greet protesters at his campaign stops.
He was criticized after last Sunday's televised debate for telling James that handling the province's crime wave was a big job.
"I do think there's a bit of an overlay here maybe with the B.C. Rail story, with some of the others that are more specific, and maybe they are hurting Premier Campbell a little bit more than we might expect," Walker said.
The B.C. Rail issue has been fuel for the NDP fire in the legislature and on the campaign trail.
Controversial Liberal insider Patrick Kinsella, who co-chaired two Campbell election campaigns, and whose name surfaced at the long-running B.C. legislature raid trial, demanded an apology from the NDP days into the campaign.
The NDP sent a letter to the RCMP to investigate allegations about Kinsella.
Kinsella's lawyer sent a letter to the NDP demanding an apology, which so far hasn't materialized.
Kinsella's name surfaced at the trial of two former Liberal government aides charged with fraud and breach of trust following the unprecedented 2003 police raid on the B.C. legislature in connection with the privatization sale of BC Rail.
Campbell has been asked about Kinsella throughout the campaign, but said he has not spoken to his former campaign aide in ages.
Among the other issues of importance for the voters surveyed, in descending order, were health care, the environment, mistrust of James, anger over the Liberal carbon tax and anger over the NDP plan to axe the carbon tax.
The poll also found respondents were not convinced either Campbell or James were capable of handling difficulties facing B.C.'s forest industry.
Forty-five per cent said Campbell was very capable or fairly capable of handling the forest crisis, while 42 said James was capable of handling the industry.
Dirk Meissner reports for The Canadian Press.
13
Login or register to post comments
G West
3 years ago
The crazy thing is that
Given Campbell's abysmal mismanagement of the economy and the fact that he's sold much of our productive capacity to foreigners and corporations what I can't understand is where the people who say he's 'good' on the economy are coming from.
The only explanation I can come up with is that all those calls are going out to Public Affairs Bureau bots like the ones who flooded the CKNW poll about Van Dongen’s driving record…something just doesn’t add up.
And it’s not just Hansen’s make believe budget.
Wilfred Laurier
3 years ago
You know why, Garth...
"I can't understand is where the people who say he's 'good' on the economy are coming from."
Garth, isn't about 65% of the population the proportion you tell us is "stupid?"
That's the real reason and you know it. Sheesh!
RossK
3 years ago
Not stupid at all....
....Just spun.
By the PAB-Bots!
.
timothymoorley
3 years ago
Refusal to adress this scandal
Well now this publication (tyee reporters) are also in possesion of the evidence that proves my accusation of this heart test being Faked and intentionally misread. My supporters can not believe that i have been made to endure this foolishness with the Dr.s the Press whoever they are. ( MOSTLY A BUNCH OF SHEEP ) David Breer you can help stop this happening to my family the facts and proof are there.
Rod Smelser
3 years ago
The Justine Hunter style of reporting on "the economy"
How do the BC Liberals score so high on "managing the economy", when in fact they are doing the very same thing their mentor and idol, former Premier and Doman shareholder Bill Bennett did twenty five years ago, following a pro-cyclical fiscal policy that will tend to lengthen and deepen the recession?
Some of the answer can be found in columns by the Globe and Mail's Justine Hunter. An example of her style of reporting is her tendency over the last ten or more years to regularly present Phil Hochstein as an economic observer, not as an interest group lobbyist.
In today's Globe we get a truly magnificent piece of fairly subtle spinning by Ms Hunter in an article titled "B.C. forest industry launches broadside against NDP in final week of campaign".
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090506.BCELECTIONMAIN06ATLART2124/TPStory/?query=justine+hunter
Ms. Hunter's article omits two very pertinent facts. First, the wood products and pulp and paper industries, which tend to be integrated in many cases, had to spend hundreds of millions of additional dollars on pollution abatement equipment because of more stringent environmental regulations when the NDP formed the government in the 1990s. The memory of these additional capital expenditures, and the debt loads that may accompany them, cannot have been far from the minds of the two forest industry executives quoted by Ms Hunter. This background wasn't mentioned.
What is much more serious is a second omission of highly pertinent facts. Ms Hunter quotes the NDP forests critic, Cariboo North MLA Bob Simpson, in reply. She quotes him only briefly and towards the end of the piece, but conspicuously fails to tell readers that Simpson is himself a former forest industry executive. In the context of the article such an omission can be seen as accidental only by an extraordinarily naïve person.
This type of reporting, presenting corporate industrial executives to the newspaper audience as men truly concerned about jobs and the economy, while failing to mention their underlying fears about pollution or other regulations, puts a certain little spin on things.
Presenting the NDP's forestry critic to those readers as just that, without mentioning his own experience as a forest industry executive, puts a nice little counter spin on things.
Those still employed at extremely high salaries in the industry are seen as knowledgable, but not as people with a financial interest at stake. Those who have left the industry, such as Simpson, get no credit for knowing anything about it. He's just a "critic". And he's NDP. So just take it from there.
When you add it all up, year after year, all these little spins give the Liberals a bigger score on "economic issues" than the NDP. And that, of course, is the sole purpose of this style of journalism.
secret cove
3 years ago
@Rod Smelser
This is all good news,the BC Liberals are in full blown free-fall---They are getting whacked in ALL the latest internal polls.
According to Glen Robbins,support for the Green party is plunging,after REAL voters got a chance to see and hear how Pathetic Jane Sterk`s platform is,the green supporters are coming to the conclusion that a vote for Green is a vote for Campbell.......
Glen Robbins also has found that the majority of BC Liberals are in support of RAISING the MINIMUM WAGE.......
Gordon Campbells entire campaighn is crashing all around him........
Today the STUDENT UNION has throw support and ads towards the NDP.........
And IPPs have been advertising heavy against the NDP.......
People,ALL PEOPLE,are fully aware that that Plutonic Power doesn`t care about BCers,but BCers are fully aware that Plutonic is freaking out about their gravy train gifts from the Liberals are over.....
This election is all but over.
RossK
3 years ago
Rod S.....
Excellent analysis...
I felt exactly the same way about lack of context in a piece from Ms. Hunter's compatriot on the other campaign Ian Bailey.
I think it is important to realize, however, that those at the control of the levers of the SpinMachine really do put their set-pieces in motion to take fullest advantage of overworked journos looking for the sharpest/pointiest angle they can find before sitting down to pound the keyboard.
_____
(which is a different thing entirely from the heard mentality which Mr. Bailey also showed in spades yesterday with his 'Campbell and Son' follow-up to all the puffery that had already been wurlitzered by the VSun.)
.
WHAT
3 years ago
Housing - retirement bubble for the last 5 years
OK let's get a couple of things straight: "is the worst over? (in the economy) have we stabalized, the newspapers of the world are trying to hint we may be at the bottom...'we don't know for sure!', the April job loss numbers in the US weren't as bad as expected: They expected to loose 708,000 - they 'only lost' 4 0 9 0 0 0.
If you go to, say... Qualicum Beach, Parksville, Courtenay, Comox, Nanaimo and Duncan areas, it is evident that there is little big industrial business around. There has been a retirement boom - contributing to the surge in housing starts and real estate sales. The big business was forestry, most if not all are out of work. If they are out of work, who is supporting business. Yes.. the elderly buy food and RV's and shop in the malls. Travel is down though! Parks are closing early.
We could start growing more of our food locally, start supporting local farmers, create a boom in local agriculture...every little bit counts. Create some jobs that way. More business for locals, more jobs, more business opportunities, and 'green' ones at that. How about renewable energy? Wouldn't that create a sustainable, renewable and long term vision for jobs, business and the environment.
Foresty: 'we were once very strong' and 'we can be again'. We need to process our raw logs, into value-added wood products and sell them locally. But that's just a start.
Vancouver: ebay just announced that it will be closing down it's call center in Vancouver, even though the company made 357 million last years. Be it US protectionism or the CEO's want to save more money outsourcing to a countries that offer cheap labour. Why isn't our gov helping/concerned/Something?. Don't we attract big business in BC? (This is only intended as one example.)
I betcha..if this was a private power company pulling out of BC something would be happening...
CEO's- some good some bad. Anymore comment, I would need my lawyer.
Executives: speaking to workers, go vote!???? Are they any workers left, other than the 60 going back to work in Julyish.
Polls/Professors: Ok...the facts based on past polls yah...but where are the environmental influences: bad economy,record job loss numbers, lower wages...the list goes on and gets worst. How about the recent change in methodology in the US, back to the basics kinda stance. It also appears that forest fires are early this year both in the US and Canada. How about our federal political scene, bail outs...they too affect perception and then there's the mainstream media....ouch to say the least!
Votes determine elections that means people, so get out their and vote. Inform yourselves and make decisions based on proven fact.
ROBBINS Sce Research
3 years ago
ROBBINS is coming--this
ROBBINS is coming--this election based on what I am currently interpreting is getting really exciting.
This is the first poll of nearly 550 polls ROBBINS has conducted since 1998--where I expect to be certain of our poll--#'s--cold certain--but cannot necessarily say for certain if the phones equal the vote.
In a very strange way--for me--it is very exciting--and humbling.
This is coming down to BC Liberals and BC New Democrats--as I see it--hope to publish late tomorrow--
thanks
glen
Sask Resident
3 years ago
Economy
I remember driving through BC in 2001. The economy was in the tank and people were doing something I thought I would never see, moving from BC to Alberta! In March of 2003, the economy looked a little better. In 2007 and last summer, after I retired, housing prices are too high for me but I could find a job almost everywhere along #1 & #3 hyws.
I'm hoping for an NDP win to drive housing down another 15% or so. Then we Roughrider fans could move to BC.
Frank
3 years ago
Sask Resident
"I'm hoping for an NDP win to drive housing down another 15% or so."
Why wait? Didn't house prices go up under the Saskatchewan Party? Oops, that's right, they're not are they?
In fact, house prices are once again declining in Saskatchewan.
You better sell now and hope.
As for the NDP, they created more jobs and had better economic growth than their right wing counterparts, a situation you in Saskatchewan know all too well eh?
By the way, I left Sask when Grant Devine and the Conservatives drove the province into the ground. How many of them went to jail again?
Frank
3 years ago
And...
By the way, I was in Saskatchewan at a friend's a year before the last election. Looked like every second business was hiring. Although I was told by Luke here that that was because of Campbell's policies in BC I did notice it was an NDP government in power at the time in Regina.
Rod Smelser
3 years ago
No reply from The Globe
RossK
I felt exactly the same way about lack of context in a piece from Ms. Hunter's compatriot on the other campaign Ian Bailey.
I haven't noticed Bailey being as slanted as Hunter, she's a bit of a classic. As I said earlier, her promotion of Phil Hochstein has been going on for at least the last ten years, and that's when I first started paying attention to her stuff. She wasn't with The Globe at that time, I believe she was working for one of the broadcast outlets.
I sent an email message outlining the problems with Justine's piece to The Globe's suggested feedback address for its BC section,
, but there's been no reply from them. I am not holding my breath.