Leadership candidate Peter MacKay might just be the Conservatives’ best chance at getting more Canadians to vote for the party.
That’s according to a new Ipsos poll, conducted exclusively for Global News, that asked Canadians about their views and recognition of four candidates in the Conservative leadership race — MacKay, Erin O’Toole, Marilyn Gladu and Derek Sloan.
Ipsos asked 1,000 Canadians — both Conservative voters and those who say they vote for other parties — under whose leadership they would consider voting for the Tories in the next election. A total of 40 per cent pointed to MacKay, compared to 31 per cent for both O’Toole and Gladu.
Just 29 per cent said they would be open to voting Conservative if the party was led by social conservative Sloan, who was just elected in the fall.
“You can really see that Peter MacKay is benefiting from his level of visibility as a cabinet minister over many years, because when you ask both Conservative voters and even Canadians generally, obviously his awareness is pretty far ahead,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos, in an interview with Global News.
“Awareness at this stage really does lead to support not just among Canadians generally, but also among people who say they would vote Conservative in the next election.”
3:14 Pierre Poilievre gets emotional over decision not to pursue Conservative leadership
Pierre Poilievre gets emotional over decision not to pursue Conservative leadership
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer lost the election to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last fall.
While the Conservatives under Scheer won the popular vote and swept Alberta and Saskatchewan, they failed to win much-needed seats in the Greater Toronto Area and Quebec, which traditionally determine which party will form government.
Critics from within his own party, including some who worked on his campaign, pointed the finger at Scheer’s social conservative views, including his opposition to same-sex marriage and reproductive rights.
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Following that loss, Scheer said in December that he would step down as Conservative leader once the party picked a replacement.
That leadership race is now underway, with voting scheduled for June 27.
But the race has been notable for the number of high-profile candidates who have chosen not to run: big names like Rona Ambrose, Jean Charest, Pierre Poilievre, Candice Bergen and Michael Chong.
1:30 Rona Ambrose announces she will not run for Conservative leadership
Rona Ambrose announces she will not run for Conservative leadership
Bricker said the big question for Conservatives now will be looking at which candidate has the name recognition to swing voters in key regions like the Greater Toronto Area. On that front, he said, it could be MacKay who has the advantage.
Thirty-one per cent of Liberal voters said they would consider voting for him compared to 22 per cent for O’Toole.
Twenty-seven per cent of NDP voters and 22 per cent of Bloc Quebecois voters said the same.
In contrast, just 17 per cent of NDP voters and 12 per cent of Bloc voters said they would consider voting for O’Toole.
Gladu and Sloan did even less well: 22 per cent of Liberals said they would consider voting for Gladu and 19 per cent said the same for Sloan.
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Among the NDP and the Bloc, 16 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, said they were open to voting for Gladu.
Those dropped to 13 per cent and 12 per cent for Sloan.
All of that, Bricker suggested, will prompt questions for Conservative voters as they weigh the options before them.
“The lesson of the last election is that the big shift has to work. And the big shift means that you need to win Western Canada, but you also need to win the suburbs of Ontario, principally the 905 [area code] region around the City of Toronto,” he said, “and if you can’t win there, you can’t defeat the Liberals.
“That’s going to be the challenge for the next leader of the Conservative Party.”
This Ipsos poll was conducted between January 24th and 27th, 2020, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,000 Canadians over the age of 18 was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians over the age of 18 been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
