05.14.2015 05:43 AM

Time for some big changes at the top, LPC (updated)

Check this out. Was pinging around Twitter last night:

 

If it’s true – and I don’t know who the pollster is, perhaps Ekos – it means Team Trudeau needs to take a long look in the mirror. And make changes. 

UPDATE: And here it is.

86 Comments

  1. Michael says:

    The poll was taken right after the NDP win from May 5 to 10. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1089113314436648

  2. Michael says:

    Here is the latest CARP poll https://twitter.com/CorComm/status/598684785079394304
    Are they reputable?

    • Matt says:

      Isn’t that the Canadian Association of Retired People??

      • Priyesh says:

        Sort of. They’re not an association like the AARP. They’ve been bought by Moses Znaimer, so they’re actually just a promotional vehicle for his magazines. But most polls are commissioned by the media. It’s really a question of who did the poll for them.

    • Dave says:

      I think that’s a straw poll, so no.

  3. Liam Young says:

    Yeah … step 1 would be to stop aping Harper’s policies and calling them your own.

  4. Matt from Ottawa says:

    I think theres many problems with the LPC and its braintrust. First of all, theyre trying to be everything to everyone and market themselves that way. That will cause many problems for them. They say or support ideals that are too far left for the grassroots libs to try to get some of the NDP votes while alienating some of the base or the swing voters that may come from the Conservatives, but then those same NDP swing supporters they are targeting are turned off when he swings in the direction to get those Lib / Con swing voters. Either way, it will leave him with just the diehard lib base which is not enough now or even close to what it used to be.

    Furthermore, when you watch him in interviews / scrums etc, he doesnt carry the gravitas needed of a future PM. Part of it comes off like hes acting (ive seen better acting in porn) and part of it is when he tries to be fun/joking etc it just doesnt seem as if hes taking it seriously. I dont care if my PM is a nice guy, or comes off like a friend, let that be for an MP, but for PM you need to be serious as its the most important and serious position in the country.

  5. doconnor says:

    Similar to this Ontario poll which also had NDP first, Conservatives second and Liberals third.

  6. Lance says:

    Wow, a three way split. I wonder who is going to benefit most from that?

    Greens at over 9%? Yeah……ok.

    • doconnor says:

      In 1992 the NDP got 9 seats with 6.8% of the vote.

      • Lance says:

        If the last four elections are any indicator, the Green Party will be nowhere near the 10% that the are polling now. They polled like that between all those elections, but never came close to that when the votes were tallied. I think it was in 2008 that they got about 6.8%. For whatever reason, when push comes to shove, their vote evaporates. But with things being so close as they are, 5% might make a big difference.

  7. Michael S says:

    Support for Bill C-51 is killing them.

  8. Christian Giles says:

    People (like me) are looking for a progressive option to the Harper Cons. Simply put that is not the federal Liberal Party.

  9. JH says:

    Butts & Co., bimbos, Blair, bill C 51, banned candidates, senators, personal belief systems etc., plus bombast ain’t cutting it.
    WK is right. Who do you think this trend is going to benefit the most?
    Yeah right – it’s May. LOL! And get Alvaro off P&P please.

  10. Matt says:

    Key paragraph:

    “The preliminary results indicate that 1,362 Canadians were surveyed, which is about half the sample size of other recent polls by EKOS. It is unclear whether the numbers obtained by the Ottawa Citizen were the final results of the poll or if the survey was extended.”

    So, half EKOS’ normal sample size and no idication if these are the final poll numbers or if Graves intentionallty let it go longer to get the Honeymoon bump for the fed NDP after Alberta.

    Not sure anything can be read into this for any of the parties.

  11. doconnor says:

    Recent elections suggest that the anti-Conservative vote will coalesce around either the NDP or the Liberals, but we may not know which one until days before the election is held.

    • Michael says:

      Can you provide an example besides the Alberta election?

      • Bruce Marcille says:

        Ummm, there is only one, and it’s kinda obvious – Quebec’s orange rush in the last federal election.

      • doconnor says:

        In addition to Quebec, there was the rise of the SNP in Scotland last week. There was the last Ontario election. It also happened in the 1993 Federal election.

    • Bill Templeman says:

      doconnor, what will be the impact of the various strategic voting campaigns to dump Harper? What impact will campaigns like LeadNow have? Will non-Con voters actually ask themselves which local candidate has the best chance of defeating the local Conservative before they lean into the ballot box? Last election the pundits said organized strategic voting was dead, which leads me to believe that it may be finally coming of age.

  12. Bruce Marcille says:

    I love how Canada’s Westminster system has developed so differently from that of the UK or other parliaments. The gravitational effect of the provinces seems to have insulated it from demands for a splintered party system like Israel or Italy by allowing provincial legislatures to express different desires- after all, Ontario is renowned for its offset voting habits.
    And instead of reinforcing voting blocks (the radical religious, the separatist) it permits them to exist, even flourish, then allows a generational political disemboweling – Alberta PC, federal PCs, Federal Liberals, Socreds, Union Nationale).
    There will always be a left, right and middle, but this may be stage III in renaming and redistributing the pie.

  13. Jeff says:

    A lot of you guys are missing the point. The point is not the risk of an NDP government. The risk is that over time the NDP eats the Liberal’s lunch to the point they are again the third party and increasingly less relevant than the NDP. With Trudeau at the helm with his perceived strength, that would be a blow the party would take a long time to recover from

  14. !o! says:

    Relative to the last most recent EKOS poll, this one has the CPC losing about 2 points, the LPC losing 2, and the NDP up 5. This returns the LPC to their late March numbers in EKOS polling, the CPC has not been this low in EKOS since October.

  15. !o! says:

    Y’know.. with an ascendant federal NDP, all those debates Harper was so keen on having are looking a lot worse for the CPC.

  16. Priyesh says:

    I was willing to vote for the NDP to stop the Conservatives, even if I usually volunteer for the Liberals. If the polls are right, it’s looking more and more like I will. It’s getting to the point where I’d really have to hold my nose on Trudeau’s support for Bill C-51 to go back. Not even sure if volunteering is a good use of my energy.

    I hope the Liberals turn it around. But maybe I shouldn’t care.

  17. Brammer says:

    Harper’s oft stated goal was to destroy the Liberal party. Even if he loses the election, he still wins ‘cuz it will be Tommy sitting at 24 Sussex.

  18. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    They say it’s so simple: the party that comes up the middle wins. Maybe. Wasn’t the case with Cameron — 331/650 with Liberal Democratic voters flocking to the Conservatives. Not ideologically consistent.

    Alberta 2015: 52% vote for right-of-center parties but NDP under Notley goes from 4 to 53 seats. Coming up the middle? Not ideologically consistent. FPTP result.

    Canada 2011: (Quebec) — NDP goes from 1 to 59 seats. Ideologically consistent.

    Apples, oranges and pears.

    • SH says:

      This lazy thinking is so tiresome. You don’t know how the 28% of Alberta voters who voted PC last week would have voted in a merged PC/Wildrose party in which the Wildrose faction would have likely had outsized influence. I think talk of vote-splitting is USUALLY nonsense.

      There are exceptions though – all those rural Ontario seats would have never gone Liberal in the 90s were it not for the two right-wing parties. But that really only amounted to 15-20 seats maximum that were gifted to the Liberals (enough to have denied them their 1997 majority, mind you).

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        SH,

        What I do know is that a successor party, the CPC, finally outpolled the legacy parties so that seems likely were there a merger in Alberta.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          SH,

          More particularly, in 1997, Alliance 19.35% + PC 18.84% = 38.19%; in 2000, Alliance 25.49% + PC 12.19 = 37.68%.

          In 2008, CPC 37.65% and in 2011, CPC 39.62%.

  19. Kaiser Helmets 'n Motorbikes says:

    Met with a Conservative backbencher the other day at his/her “off-broadway” Stalinist inspired Sparks Street MP office. Was struck by how useless it was meeting with them.

    All we talked about was “who’s who” in the zoo. “So and so does this”, and” I met with her last week, and I’m off tomorrow to meet him.”

    WTF.

    No discussion of serious policy matters, no real grasp of the issue we were to discuss. Just a one hour trip back to the high school student council meetings I used to chair a third of a century ago. Came away realizing (again) how useless it is to try to find a “serious” political candidate.

    If this person can sit on the government benches and whisper into the PM’s ear, why can’t the NDP Carleton University single mother bar tender? She seems about as clued in as any of the Cons I’ve had to deal with over the past 8 years.

    Does politics really matter anyway?

    Other than trying to control spending, and keep taxation rates more or less in line with our major trading partners, what do we really need from these people? The Bureaucracy runs itself, the Bank of Canada runs itself, the Supreme Court runs itself. There has only been one generational political event in our lifetime, the Constitution / Charter, and even that is really not much more than a re-hash of what existed before. Does anyone honestly believe major social policy changes such as equal marriage would not have happened anyway under the BNA?

    The one good thing about an NDP government is that is sends all the Conservative and Liberal self-important high school cheer-leaders back to nowhereville and their job at the car wash.

  20. Kelly says:

    Not surprised. The NDP is the only real conservative party. A party advocates for a good safety net, income security for all, checks on predatory capitalism and strong safety regulations is truly conservative. Parties that compete to cut taxes and gut services to free up personal cash flow so people can get deeper into creditcard debt and then have to fend for themselves when things go pear shaped isnt conservative, it’s wreckless and immature. Its the Canada Harper is creating. It’s the Ontario Harris created. Its the Alberta Klein created and its all coming to an end. Canada is growing up.

    • Brad says:

      Before Harper was a Reformer he was a Liberal supporter. As the Conservative leader, his objective was to make the Conservatives the Canadian “liberal” voter’s choice. His problem was and still is the “social conservatives” with their wacky religiosity and archaic orthodoxy. Harper tries to suppress this extremist element, like Cheryl Gallant and even Stockwell Day, and has been successful in stifling them one way or another.

      Liberal and NDP problem may be that both leaders are from Quebec. The dark horse will be new PQ leader Pierre-Karl Peladeau who I believe will be active in Quebec in the federal election and promoting his egotistical brand of sovereignty. I suspect he will try to resurrect the defunct BQ and telling Quebecers that is their best voice in Ottawa. Wanna bet… because if he stays silent that will expose his weakness and he must show strength.

  21. SH says:

    I’ve long said not to underestimate Thomas Mulcair. I find it amusing that many people compare Mulcair to Jack, as if the comparison is a negative one. Quite the opposite.

    For me, someone who is generally right-leaning but would consider voting for a leftish party, Jack Layton was always a bit of a clown. With all due respect to the late leader, I would have never in a million years voted NDP with him at the helm. Mulcair on the hand, intrigues me. I can envision him in a Prime Ministerial role in the way that I could never envision whacky Jack. Let’s not forget that in all the Orange Crush hoopla in 2011, outside Quebec the NDP only gained 5 or 6 seats versus the 2008 election.

    If enough Canadians start to imagine Mulcair in a similar light, it’s game over for Mr. Shiny Hair, but not necessarily for Harper. A one-on-one debate between Harper and Mulcair – two highly intelligent, well-read, and scrupulously prepared politicians – would be great to watch. Unfortunately, the Separatist, the Airhead, and the Terrorist Groupie will get in the way.

    • Warren says:

      Full disclosure: I completely underestimated Mulcair.

      • Lance says:

        A fair and humble statement. I did, too. I think a lot of people underestimated him, though. A lot of people likewise overestimated Trudeau.

        Mulcair being underestimated and Trudeau being overestimated simultaneously; I wonder if this is a deluge in the making. The closer we get to E-Day, it is going to be easier for the fence sitters to find where to park.

        • SH says:

          The Liberals had the young, experienced, and intelligent Dominic Leblanc ready to go but they pre-empted his candidacy by pumping someone who by all accounts was not ready for prime time.

        • cynical says:

          This fence-sitter has already made the decision. Strategic voting be damned! I will not vote for a party that supported, even grudgingly, C-51.

          I too look forward to a Mulcair-Harper debate. My suspicion is that, given a level playing field, Mulcair will win. If the media let him.

          The NDP win in Alberta has given permission for a lot of us to make this commitment. If there, why not everywhere. It certainly could not be worse than it is now.

          • Lance says:

            You know, that is a very interesting idea you have there – people who have voted Liberal in the past who flirted with the idea of voting NDP, but didn’t for whatever reason; now possibly finally taking the plunge because it has become okay to vote for them. There is is certainly bound to be some surprises this election, I’ll bet.

        • Pat says:

          I can’t help but think that, despite what we’re all discussing in English Canada, Trudeau will still make gains in Quebec on name-value alone. Those gains will come at the expense of the NDP. I’d be more confident about that if Mulcair wasn’t from Quebec though.

      • SH says:

        It does seem like people had this impression that Mulcair’s style – disciplined, emotionally-controlled (not the same thing as emotionless), smart perhaps a bit TOO smart – would turn off voters. That belief mystifies me considering who has been PM for the past 9 1/2 years.

      • edward nuff says:

        Warren were you pulling our collective pinkies when you wrote that otherwise I’m gobsmacked. Rock on.

    • chuckercanuck says:

      Thomas Mulcair is a serious person who has run a ministry. He and Harper are a good match the way Trudeau and May are a good match.

      However, credit goes to quite a few people for this recent NDP bloom. I think Brian Topp almost tops that list. Premier Notley did some good for the NDP too.

      Trudeau can also claim some credit by having cloned the Conservatives on all major policy choices this year. C-51 and his near-Tory tax cut plan are, in effect, an endorsement of the Harper years. Trudeau has made sure that everybody sees the NDP as the only substantial alternative to the Tories. And there’s just about nothing he can do to walk back from that.

      The election should be lots of fun. Splits will be going in all sorts directions. I’d bet the threat of Dippers taking government will push some traditionally Liberal ridings into the Conservative column. Like the western half of Montreal for example.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Chucker,

        Quebec anglophones are mostly dyed-in-the-wool federal Liberals. They are the last bastion that Justin can count on, come Hell or high water. (Really learned that lesson the hard way when I was still a Conservative.) The absolute best of the old reliables.

        • Brad says:

          Paint a pig Liberal red and West Island Montrealers will vote for it…. and also in the Montreal central riding held by retiring Lib MP Cotler — Mont-Royal …!

  22. Michael says:

    They should fire Gerald Butts. Is Butts a strategist or an environmentalist?

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Michael,

      What we learned from Ignatieff’s leadership is that firing the underlings accomplishes precisely nothing as a political boost for the leader. Voters collectively form an impression, whether based on reality or not, and then proceed to fire the leader Γ  la Donald Trump. Worse than that, if they absolutely can’t stand you, they even have the power to take away your seat in the Commons. Politics, what a bitch.

  23. Kevin says:

    More and more people are beginning to see that Justin is an empty suit.

    • Brad says:

      But Justin is also viewed as a Martinite Liberal… by Chretienite Liberals. The schism still simmers!

  24. Brian K says:

    Lots of time between now and October, but with the recent success of the NDP in Alberta I’m more and more able to see the NDP holding on to a robust opposition role (still think the smart money is on a Conservative minority). Trudeau was not tested by a proper leadership race. As with Ignatieff, the party’s rush to coronate a new “chosen one” has hurt their long term interests. A general election is not the time to gain seasoning, which Trudeau still needs. To be clear, I thought last week was just about the best week he’s had as leader. I genuinely like the child care benefit as policy – it’s essentially a guaranteed annual income for children, which is a far superior way to fight child poverty than by establishing some national child care bureaucracy. But I saw Trudeau speak in Toronto this week and I’m still not impressed. Aside from the class warfare stuff (“radical options”), which is just astounding, he seems too rehearsed, too speech-y. He spoke to a roomful of business people and politicians with the earnest manner of a high school civics teacher. It’s a real shame, because, at least in the GTA, he’s put together an excellent slate of candidates. The Liberal brand still attracts good people, but I just don’t believe that he has the intellectual horsepower to do well in a straight up fight with Mulcair over who gets to be the anti-Harper. There’s only so much his team can do if the problem is Trudeau himself, and I fear that may be the case. Would love to be wrong, we’ll see.

    • Bill Templeman says:

      Have to agree with you, Brian. When I compare JT’s speaking style of today to the speeches he delivered a few years ago, he seems ‘way over-coached and very unnatural. An election campaign is not a time to find one’s voice. On that level, Mulcair is the dominant “anti-Harper” by far. What is more concerning is the bogus policy advice he is getting from his handlers. “Harper-lite” is not going to attract the broad anti-Harper vote. Centre and Left Liberals will vote for Mulcair

  25. Matt says:

    The poll has been updated, and it’s a tiny bit worse for the Liberals.

    The new survey by polling company Ekos puts the Conservatives at 30.0 percent support, the NDP at 29.1 percent, and the Liberals at 27.0 percent. Earlier, preliminary, results had put the NDP narrowly ahead of both parties.

    2177 polled May 6 to 12.

    http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKBN0NZ1PA20150514

    • Matt says:

      If the results are accurate, it would appear Trudeau has gotten nothing out of his “tax the rich” plan. At least not yet.

  26. Kelly says:

    The conservative spell was broken in Alberta. The Alberta political culture made it very hard to vote for anyone else because of social pressure. It was Verboten to declare support for other parties. Warren himself has ststed how his teachers called him names. now there are so many new Albertans from all over the country that you are finally socially free to vote for anyone you want. If the Alberta NDP do a good job the forst 6 months — and thry find some goodies in the shredder trucks linking the oil and gas industry certain people linked to certain political parties, watch out.

    • Roger says:

      Did Albertans vote for political change based on policy, or did they just vote for telegenic Notley and because she sounded good…. or did they just want to boot out the bums and try a different flavour of political leadership?

  27. SeanFordyce says:

    Given what parliament is likely to look like, Trudeau might have to pull a Prentice on election night even if he more than doubles his current seats. By saying he will not work with the NDP in a coalition, Trudeau has set up some impossible situations. He is fine if he gets a majority. He might be fine with a strong plurality. If the Conservatives get a majority he must resign. That was always a given.

    However, if the NDP and Liberals together have a majority but the Liberals don’t have the horses to govern alone, Trudeau must resign. His statement that he would not work with the NDP in a coalition means that his party could split with many of his members joining an NDP-Liberal government without him. The NDP does not accept floor crossers to their party but they can accept Liberals into a coalition without their leader. The risk of this alone would have people calling for Trudeau’s head even if he ended up with a respectable increase in seats to the 80-90 range with the NDP around 100. In this case it could be as hard for Trudeau as if Mulcair won a majority and the Liberals remained under 50 seats.

    Trudeau’s comments were made presuming the Liberals would get a lot more seats than the NDP. In fact those comments bet the farm on exactly that.

    His position on C-51 was based on the premise that former CPC voters would opt for his party if he sounded more like the CPC and did not rock the boat too hard. But if Canadians are split between loyalty to Harper and those who want real change and not just CPC-lite it will be Trudeau who is left behind.

    The more Canadians look at Mulcair, the more they may feel that the NDP is a home for all the traditional values the Liberals used to stand for. The Liberal party may not be missed by Liberals and if not them who else would care?

  28. Al in Cranbrook says:

    More than likely a flash in the proverbial pan.

    That said, could polarize the Oct. election, with Blue Libs fleeing to the CPC in order to block the NDP.

    Can’t imagine a worse scenario for this country than an NDP victory of any kind, would set us back decades.

    • Brad says:

      Why do I suspect that Harper and Mulcair have a secret agreement to demolish the Justin Liberals and split the spoils with the Red Grits going to the NDP and Blue Grits to the CPC. Does the Liberal party deserve to exist politically?

  29. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Al,

    “Can’t imagine a worse scenario for this country than an NDP victory of any kind, would set us back decades.” Remember when they said precisely that about Harper in 2006? Wasn’t true then and certainly isn’t now as regards Mulcair.

    Guess who went toe-to-toe with Charest? Some guy named Mulcair. Worth remembering, going forward.

  30. Roger says:

    Maybe Canadians will decide to try a different flavour of politics…… just as wise Albertans did….. change for the sake of change.

  31. SF Thomas says:

    We have confirmation of the trend in a Forum Poll for the Star http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/05/15/federal-liberals-ndp-tories-in-three-way-tie-poll.html. Cons and Libs at 31 and NDP at 30. It is an interesting shake up, however we still need to wait and see if the trend holds. The NDP could very well be riding a post-Alberta election high which gave people a temporary confidence boost. I wouldn’t count Trudeau out at this point either since even with the relative decline compared to a year ago the Liberals have still been pretty stable the last few months hovering around 30%. This is also the period where platform pieces start to get released.

    The NDP could potentially be eating into the Conservative support a bit as well if Forum is accurate here since the Liberal numbers have not massively changed and the Conservatives went down about 4 compared to their last poll.

    The other thing is that the polls don’t always translate into the seat count. If the federal Liberals keep a decent lead over the NDP in Ontario, especially in urban and suburban areas they could very well end up winning more seats even if the NDP keeps a good chunk of its Quebec gains. That combined with polling well in Atlantic Canada at least gives the Liberals a decent base to work with.

  32. ajay kumar says:

    There is no need to panic. Everything will be just fine. Libs have been going down because of the provincial govts. C51, tax cuts have nothing to do with it. Ontario NDP also lead for a while and won most by elections. I predict a con minority with lib opposition. It takes time to rebuild. And good luck to the NDP which promised $15 daycare, $15 minimum wage in Alberta. I bet in a year the Alberta NDP will be very unpopular. Mulcair has a beard, no one with a beard has been elected as a leader anywhere in the western world since at least a century. Looks matter more in politics than policies.under JT, we have done so well in by elections compare that to Paul Martin, Dion , and ignatieff.

  33. gyor says:

    The premier of Quebec has a beard.

    A new poll out, Robbins SCE Research has the NDP at 33%, libs 32.5%, Tories at 26%. With 37% in BC, 41% in Quebec, and 32% to the Tories 34% in Alberta, this could mean an NDP government.

  34. Bill Templeman says:

    What do we make of the gap between Robbins SCE’s poll and the numbers Eric Grenier is reporting on ThreeHundredEight.com? Grenier’s numbers are 31.8% Con, 30%, & 24% NDP. Or do only fools ask questions about polls 5 months out before an election?

    • Skoblin says:

      Grenier’s numbers are an aggregate including polling data going back several months on a weighted basis. It does not reflect what the polling numbers are at any one particular moment in time.

  35. Bill Templeman says:

    that is 30% Lib

  36. e.a.f. says:

    it would be interesting to know if this polls was a “real poll” or just some casual thing.

    Some are not happy with Trudeau’s support for Bill C-51. Then the Alberta NDP won and perhaps now, with Alberta voting NDP people may be willing to give them a try.

    Trudeau supporting Bill C-51, knocked the federal Liberals out for me. I will have to decide between the Greens and the NDP. We have no guarantee Trudeau will repeal the law if he should form government. To decide to “support” the bill for political expediency says more about him than I wanted to know, or rather its a good thing I now know what he is like.

    • Brad says:

      All polls only reflect who would win if the election was held yesterday….. and without an election campaign or leader debates. Things can swing on a dime … and ‘trends’ can be reversed too.

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