Canadians Say No Clear Winner Emerged from Leaders’ Debates

One-third of Canadians (33%) watched the Federal Leaders’ debates conducted on April 16th and 17th, and 28% report reading or listening to subsequent news or analysis. Among those who watched and/or heard analysis, Canadians believe Mark Carney very narrowly outperformed Pierre Poilievre in the English language debate, with 33% favouring Carney and 30% supporting Poilievre. Jagmeet Singh garnered 3% and Yves-Francois Blanchet 2%. Notably, 12% of respondents felt that none of the leaders triumphed in the English debate, and 21% were undecided. 

For the French debate, Pierre Poilievre was deemed the winner by 24% of Canadians nationally, followed by Carney at 18%, Blanchet at 12%, and Singh at 2%, while 12% said none and 31% don’t know. But within Quebec, specifically, Blanchet (31%) was declared the winner by the largest proportion of viewers, followed by Carney (25%), Poilievre (18%) and Singh (3%), while 11% say none of them won and 11% are unsure either way.
 

Relative to expectations, Canadians who followed the debates are more inclined to say that Poilievre outperformed expectations compared to Carney. Specifically, 25% believe the Conservative leader exceeded expectations, whereas 21% think he fell short. Conversely, Carney was perceived by more debate followers to have underperformed (21%) compared to those who felt he surpassed expectations (14%).

As the election enters its final week, 45% of Canadians perceive the Liberal Party as gaining the most popularity and momentum despite voting intention showing a tightening race. In contrast, 29% believe the Conservative Party is on the rise, which suggests an  emerging underdog effect.
 

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between April 17th and 19th, 2025, on behalf of Global News.  For this survey, a sample of n=1,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online, via the Ipsos I-Say panel and non-panel sources, and respondents earn a nominal incentive for their participation. Quotas and weighting were employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos polls which include non-probability sampling is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians 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. Ipsos abides by the disclosure standards established by the CRIC, found here: https://canadianresearchinsightscouncil.ca/standards/

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Darrell Bricker, PhD
CEO, Ipsos Global Public Affairs
+1 416 324 2001
[email protected]
 

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