TORONTO —
The Conservatives have opened a five-point lead and leader Erin O’Toole has surpassed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in popularity among voters, giving the Conservatives clear momentum going into the holiday weekend, according to nightly tracking conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News and the Globe and Mail.
According to the latest nightly tracking ending Thursday and released Friday morning, ballot support for the Conservatives is 35.7 per cent, compared with 30.7 per cent for the Liberals. The poll has a margin of error ± 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
“Looking at the trend, Erin O’Toole is shaping up to be a political freight train,” pollster Nik Nanos said on Friday’s edition of CTVNews.ca’s Trend Line podcast. “It’s been a game changer of an election and Erin O’Toole definitely has momentum.”
The latest tracking result shows the Liberals and Conservatives have essentially swapped places since the election kicked off on Aug. 15, as an Aug. 12 poll showed Liberal support at 33.4 per cent and the Conservatives at 28.4 per cent.
O’TOOLE TOP PERFORMER
But the story of the campaign has been Canadians’ increasing acceptance of the idea of O’Toole as prime minister. After lagging Trudeau in preferred prime minister polls for most of the campaign, the latest tracking data shows O’Toole with 31.1 per cent support, compared to Trudeau at 27.3 per cent, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh holding in at 19.6 per cent in third.
“When you look at the trend line the Conservatives are incrementally picking up basically every day,” said Nanos. “I think we have to say, factoring the ballot numbers, that O’Toole has been the top performer in this campaign, and O’Toole’s performance on a day-to-day basis had been driving that incremental increase.”
While the Liberals may have hoped that the release of their election platform on Wednesday would interrupt the Conservative momentum, that does not appear to have happened.
“Tick tock for the Liberals because time is running out in this election. I know it’s only Sept. 3 but before we know it we’ll be pushing into the last week of the campaign,” said Nanos.
The first French-language leaders debate took place on Thursday, and there is the potential for a shift in momentum from the second French-language debate set for Sept. 8, and the English debate on Sept. 9.
But it appears one issue weighing on the Liberals and their leader is Trudeau’s decision to call the election in the first place. A separate Nanos poll conducted Aug. 28-30 showed that 76 per cent of Canadians found the election to be either not necessary or somewhat not necessary, while only 23 per cent said it was necessary or somewhat necessary.
ATLANTIC SHIFT, ONTARIO GAINS
The tracking data show the Conservatives with significant strength outside of the western provinces that have been its core of support in recent elections.
According to Nanos, the Conservatives are poised to gain ground in Atlantic Canada, where the Liberals won 26 of 32 seats in 2019, and the Conservatives won four.
“Atlantic Canada was a red fortress and has been and traditionally is very strong for the Liberals,” said Nanos. “Right now Atlantic Canada is in play. The Conservatives will pick up seats in Atlantic Canada, the question is how many.”
They should also factor in the Quebec vote along with the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois, with the potential for vote splitting. They’re also looking to make gains in the seat-rich battleground of Ontario, which is key for any party hoping to form a government.
In Western Canada, the NDP are showing the potential to gains ground in British Columbia, where they won 11 seats in 2019, said Nanos.
According to the tracking data, the NDP are at 18.3 per cent, while the Bloc are at 5.5 per cent. The People’s Party at 4.8 per cent have also now pulled ahead of the Green Party at 4.5 per cent, although the gap is well within the poll’s margin of error.
“For the Green Party this has to be a disappointing election,” said Nanos. “They don’t have a national campaign, their leader hasn’t been able to get the same type of exposure that past leaders of the Green Party have.”
With little more than two weeks before the Sept. 20 vote, Nanos said it could take a significant gaffe by O’Toole or the Conservatives to shift the current momentum, particularly as Canadians head into the Labour Day weekend where conversations around barbecues can firm up voter intentions.
“We’ve got the holiday weekend where everyone is going to be talking,” said Nanos. You know what they’re going to be talking about, that perhaps that Erin O’Toole can be the next Prime Minister of Canada.”
NANOS’ METHODOLOGY
A national random telephone survey (land- and cellular-line sample using live agents) of 1,200 Canadians is conducted by Nanos Research throughout the campaign over a three-day period. Each evening a new group of 400 eligible voters are interviewed. The daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample comprising 1,200 interviews. To update the tracking a new day of interviewing Is added and the oldest day dropped. The margin of error for a survey of 1,200 respondents is ± 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The respondent sample is stratified geographically and by gender. The data may be weighted by age according to data from the 2016 Canadian Census administered by Statistics Canada. Percentages reported may not add up to 100 due to rounding.
The second French-language leaders’ debate takes place on Sept. 8, and the English-language debate on Sept. 9. A previous version of this article provided incorrect dates.
Opinion: Brad West been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization
Published Apr 22, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read
VICTORIA — Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West fired off a letter to Premier David Eby last week about Allan Schoenborn, the child killer who changed his name in a bid for anonymity.
“It is completely beyond the pale that individuals like Schoenborn have the ability to legally change their name in an attempt to disassociate themselves from their horrific crimes and to evade the public,” wrote West.
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The Alberta government has legislated against dangerous, long-term and high risk offenders who seek to change their names to escape public scrutiny.
“I urge your government to pass similar legislation as a high priority to ensure the safety of British Columbians,” West wrote the premier.
The B.C. Review Board has granted Schoenborn overnight, unescorted leave for up to 28 days, and he spent some of that time in Port Coquitlam, according to West.
This despite the board being notified that “in the last two years there have been 15 reported incidents where Schoenborn demonstrated aggressive behaviour.”
“It is absolutely unacceptable that an individual who has committed such heinous crimes, and continues to demonstrate this type of behaviour, is able to roam the community unescorted.”
Understandably, those details alarmed PoCo residents.
But the letter is also an example of the outspoken mayor’s penchant for to-the-point pronouncements on provincewide concerns.
He’s been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization.
His most recent blast followed the news that the New Democrats were appointing a task force to advise on ways to curb the use of illicit drugs and the spread of weapons in provincial hospitals.
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“Where the hell is the common sense here?” West told Mike Smyth on CKNW recently. “This has just gone way too far. And to have a task force to figure out what to do — it’s obvious what we need to do.
“In a hospital, there’s no weapons and you can’t smoke crack or fentanyl or any other drugs. There you go. Just saved God knows how much money and probably at least six months of dithering.”
He had a pithy comment on the government’s excessive reliance on outside consultants like MNP to process grants for clean energy and other programs.
“If ever there was a place to find savings that could be redirected to actually delivering core public services, it is government contracts to consultants like MNP,” wrote West.
He’s also broken with the Eby government on the carbon tax.
“The NDP once opposed the carbon tax because, by its very design, it is punishing to working people,” wrote West in a social media posting.
“The whole point of the tax is to make gas MORE expensive so people don’t use it. But instead of being honest about that, advocates rely on flimsy rebate BS. It is hard to find someone who thinks they are getting more dollars back in rebates than they are paying in carbon tax on gas, home heat, etc.”
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West has a history with the NDP. He was a political staffer and campaign worker with Mike Farnworth, the longtime NDP MLA for Port Coquitlam and now minister of public safety.
When West showed up at the legislature recently, Farnworth introduced him to the house as “the best mayor in Canada” and endorsed him as his successor: “I hope at some time he follows in my footsteps and takes over when I decide to retire — which is not just yet,” added Farnworth who is running this year for what would be his eighth term.
Other political players have their eye on West as a future prospect as well.
Several parties have invited him to run in the next federal election. He turned them all down.
Lately there has also been an effort to recruit him to lead a unified Opposition party against Premier David Eby in this year’s provincial election.
I gather the advocates have some opinion polling to back them up and a scenario that would see B.C. United and the Conservatives make way (!) for a party to be named later.
Such flights of fancy are commonplace in B.C. when the NDP is poised to win against a divided Opposition.
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By going after West, the advocates pay a compliment to his record as mayor (low property taxes and a fix-every-pothole work ethic) and his populist stands on public safety, carbon taxation and other provincial issues.
The outreach to a small city mayor who has never run provincially also says something about the perceived weaknesses of the alternatives to Eby.
“It is humbling,” West said Monday when I asked his reaction to the overtures.
But he is a young father with two boys, aged three and seven. The mayor was 10 when he lost his own dad and he believes that if he sought provincial political leadership now, “I would not be the type of dad I want to be.”
When West ran for re-election — unopposed — in 2022, he promised to serve out the full four years as mayor.
He is poised to keep his word, confident that if the overtures to run provincially are serious, they will still be there when his term is up.
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LIVE Q&A WITH B.C. PREMIER DAVID EBY: Join us April 23 at 3:30 p.m. when we will sit down with B.C. Premier David Eby for a special edition of Conversations Live. The premier will answer our questions — and yours — about a range of topics, including housing, drug decriminalization, transportation, the economy, crime and carbon taxes. Click HERE to get a link to the livestream emailed to your inbox.
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