TORONTO – The Conservative Party is gaining ground over the Liberals, but Erin O’Toole’s leadership is once again a burden. This is the snapshot taken by a Leger poll presented today that highlights how the balance of power between the parties at the federal level has substantially stabilized in recent months after last autumn’s elections.
According to the poll, the Liberals led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at this time would be at 34 percent, two percentage points less than the poll carried out by Leger in December but well above the percentage reached at the polls on September 20, 2021, when the grits totaled 32.6 percent, winning the relative majority of parliamentarians.
The Conservatives, after a negative period in voting intentions, have returned to 31 percent, the same level they had before the last federal election.
If you were to vote right now, the NDP would stand at 18 percent, Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party would grow to 6 percent while the Green Party would not go beyond 3 percent.
But it is the data on the various leaders that gives a very precise meaning to this latest survey. Based on a sample of 1,525 respondents, the liberal leader continues to be seen as the most qualified politician to lead the country.
When asked who would be the best prime minister, 25 percent of respondents pointed to Trudeau, 19 percent to the democrat Jagmeet Singh and only 16 percent to Erin O’Toole. And here we come to the big problem that has been beseting the Conservatives since their defeat in the September vote. The party leader is not only not an added value, but even represents a ballast for the legitimate growth aspirations of the Canadian right.
If 31 percent of the sample is ready to vote for the Conservative Party and only 16 percent consider O’Toole suitable for the role of prime minister, this means that one in two Conservative voters not only does not have a high regard for their leader, but even prefers a liberal or a neo-democrat as prime minister.
In short, we are facing a deep crisis that the Canadian conservative galaxy is going through, a crisis of which we had already seen worrying signs in the elections, with the boom in votes for the other right-wing party – Bernier’s PPC – and the defeat in some districts considered Tory fiefdoms in Alberta and the Western Provinces.
On Thursday at the meeting of the Conservative Party will be presented the Cumming report, an analysis of the reasons for the defeat.
The rebels who want O’Toole’s resignation are sharpening their weapons and the document could represent the springboard to try to defenestrate the current leader. The signs coming from the polls confirm the generalized impression of recent months: with this conservative leadership Trudeau sleeps peacefully.