VANCOUVER - On a weekend when Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is reviewing the Tories' economic update to decide if it's worth supporting, a Nanos poll suggests Stephen Harper is in trouble.
Without prompting respondents, the poll asked Canadians to identify the Conservative government's main strengths and weaknesses.
Asked to define a strength, only 36% could do so. Stephen Harper himself was the most often cited Conservative strength (5%). But 45% weren't sure, and 19% said the Conservatives have no strengths at all.
Asked to define the Conservatives' main weakness, 65% named one (Harper at 11.6% was the top pick), 33% weren't sure, and only 3% said the government had no weaknesses.
Over all, the Nanos poll found that 36% of Canadians could define Conservative strengths, while 65% could define Conservative weaknesses.
Given such responses, Ignatieff could well decide Canadians will be grateful for a summer election.
Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.
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Wilfred Laurier
2 years ago
Harper
Harper is in a bind. For a man who claimed to have such high minded principles, it turns out his only one is keeping power. This has had the effect of alienating him from his Alberta power base and the swing vote in Ontario. His tactics in Quebec have been a complete disaster.
He is trailing the Liberals by ten points in Ontario and he will get smoked in the Maritimes. Why? Well, when you want the Down Homers to vote for you, all you have to do is promise easier pogy.
RickW
2 years ago
Willy ol' buddy
Bit of an insult there, old boy.
And perhaps you may not have heard, but Nova Scotia saw the light eveb while BC chose to remain in the dark -- so, after 100 years of being "have not", that province has begun the long trek to "have" status.
Uh....Harper who?
seth
2 years ago
No Nukes Harper and Global Warming
Harpo's recent nix on medical isotopes and dumping AECL having a effect on polling?
Well who knows but....
Contrary to most environmentalist thinking, Harper actually believes the destruction of the earth by global warming is a good thing leading to the Apocalypse where the faithful (neocons) would be saved and progressives sent to hell. When he found out that mass production of AECL's ACR-1000 reactor with rapid deployment throughout Canada would actually end his prayed for climate apocalypse he decided to put a stop to it then and there. Sell AECL to the lowest bidder he proclaimed as part of the new buy high sell low government business plan he and his sidekick Gordo "Pirate Power" Campbell worked out.
That the upstart OBama is making noise of ending imports of dirty Alberta Tar Sands oil, with its enormous waste of natural gas enraged Harper. That will delay the Apocalypse by ten years or more. When he found out about plans to replace the enormous waste of natural gas with 12 GW's of nuclear steam to placate the hated Obama he went ballistic. Not only would that set back the Apocalypse by ten years but it would cost his beloved Oil/Gas/Coal producers billions.
He rang up his sidekick El Gordo out in BC and quickly rucked up a no environmental assessment emergency plan to build a pipeline and supertanker port at Kitimat exporting that Tar Sands oil to China. Even got DaGucci Suzuki, Pembina, and that Berman woman on side with it.
Now he can shut down AECL, tell Obama to stick it up his nose, and wait anxiously for the SHOUT knowing he's assisting it on its way.
He's purring like a kitten now all curled up on his throne back at 24 Sussex drive. He got 'er done.
Wilfred Laurier
2 years ago
Seth...
"Uh....Harper who?"
Uh, Peter McKay who?
The Liberals are preaching easy pogy. That is targeted right Down Home, which is looking for a return of Lotto 10-42.
Ahhh, politics.
Luke Skywalker
2 years ago
A Federal Political Crapshoot...
Federal public opinion polls have been coming out of pollsters ying yangs ... Ipsos, Nanos, Harris-Decima, Angusr Reid Strategies, Strategic Counsel... and on and on.
Interesting stuff. But the problem is that if any party dares to pull the electoral plug, Canadians wuld be facing their 4th federal election within 5 years. That's unheard of.
Something akin to the never-ending quasi-annual spaghetti elections that faced Italy in days gone by.
One thing's for sure. Canuckistanis are focused upon their own personal economic anxieties right now and have no interest in going back to the polls.
Friday's Ipsos finding bears that out:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Liberals+edge+Tories+poll/1670222/story.html
Whichever parties are viewed as responsible for another election right now will reap the vengeance of voters at the ballot box.
Spring/fall 2010 would be another matter.
Wilfred Laurier
2 years ago
I agree
There will not be a summer election. I would wager fall 2010. Harper, who ran in the "Impossible Deficit" will be smothered in a sea of red ink. He cannot raise taxes to pay for it since this would destroy his credibility in his own voter cadre.
The deficits Harper is responsible for by cutting the GST and having the largest increases in programme spending in Canadian history have to be paid for. This is going to mean raising taxes and cutting spending somewhere down the road. We cannot return to the kind of deficits we had in the Mulroney years. The kind of unemployment we have now pales in comparison to the Mulroney years and if we do not get our financial house in order, we can be back there before you know it.
Our "free market conservative" has now become the largest bestower of corporate welfare in Canadian history. First it was the auto companies, then the wood workers, now the steel workers are in line for my money, and none of it will do a lick of good. Paying people to stay home is a road we have already been down and it is useless. It undermines the productivity our an economy.
RickW
2 years ago
Willy ol' buddy
We haven't had a productive economy for decades now -- unless you call wholesale export of raw resources an "economy".
Moonbug
2 years ago
agreed, selling off our
agreed, selling off our resources hardly qualifies as an economy. What do we do when they are gone? Have no economy?
It doesn't make sense.
Everything we have will only get more valuable over time. We should be producing goods for domestic consumption (throwing a huge tariff on everything that is not produced using fair labour and solid environmental laws to even the playing field between us and the slave factories in Asia) and sitting tight on anything we don't need immediately.