Conservatives (40%) Hold Lead over Liberals (30%, -1) as SNC-Lavalin Affair Continues to Boil

Toronto, ON — Demonstrating that the issue is not going away in the minds of Canadians, the Conservatives are holding their lead over the Liberals as the SNC-Lavalin affair continues to boil, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Global News.

If an election were held tomorrow, the Conservatives, led by Andrew Scheer, would receive 40% of the decided popular vote, unchanged since Ipsos’ last poll on March 4^th. The Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, would receive 30% of the vote, down 1 point. Jagmeet Singh and the NDP’s share of the vote would be 21% (up 1 point), while the Bloc would receive 5%, up 1 point (23% in Quebec). All other parties, including the Green Party, would receive 4% of the vote nationally. One in ten (11%) Canadians are unsure of how they would vote, and 6% say they simply wouldn’t vote or would spoil their ballot.

The present Liberal misfortunes are also apparent in the key regions of Canada. Of particular note is that the Liberals only lead in Quebec and nowhere else:

• In seat-rich Ontario, the Conservatives (40%) have a double-digit lead over the Liberals (28%) who are now tied with the NDP (28%).
• In Quebec, while the Liberals still lead with 38% of the popular vote, both the Conservatives (25%) and Bloc (23%) are demonstrating some strength which would prevent the Liberals from securing the number of seats they would need to hold on to the government benches. The NDP, with just 12% of the vote support in Quebec, is poised to lose most, if not all, of its seats.
• In British Columbia, the Conservatives (39%) also have a double-digit lead over the Liberals (26%) and NDP (25%) who are jostling for 2^nd
• In Alberta, the Tory (63%) lead over the Liberals (17%) and NDP (15%) is rock solid.
• In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Conservative (48%) advantage over the Liberals (29%) and NDP (19%) is formidable.
• Even in Atlantic Canada, the Conservatives (48%) are once again competitive with a lead over the Liberals (37%) and NDP (10%).

The Liberals are also losing to the Conservatives among many of the key constituencies that propelled them to victory in 2015:

• Among women, the Conservatives (40%) are well ahead o the Liberals (28%) and NDP (24%), a similar spread to the Conservative (41%) lead over the Liberals (31%) and NDP (17%) among men.
• Among young adults aged 18-34, the Conservatives (34%) are leading, ahead of the Liberals (31%) and NDP (28%). Predictably, the Tory lead is larger among 35-54-year olds (38% Cons vs. 29% Libs vs. 22% NDP) and 55+ year olds (46% Cons vs. 29% Libs vs. 14% NDP).
• The only key subset of the population among which the Liberals lead is the university educated (44% Libs vs 30% Cons vs. 19% NDP). Among every other group, including those with some post-secondary education, a high school diploma, or no diploma, the Conservatives have a double-digit lead over their rivals.

Continuing its downward trajectory, four in ten (40%) Canadians say they approve (8% strongly/32% somewhat) of the performance of the Liberal government under the leadership of Justin Trudeau (down 2 points), while six in ten (60%) disapprove (30% strongly/30% somewhat).

Trudeau’s approval rating (40%) is now lower than that of President Donald Trump’s approval rating (43%) in the United States. By way of another comparison, in April, 2015, prior to the October 2015 federal election, the Harper government’s approval rating was 47%, well ahead of where the Trudeau Government’s presently is around the same juncture – although it dipped to 38% by the start of the official campaign in September, 2015.

If the Liberals were hoping to use Bill Morneau’s recent federal budget to change the channel away from the SNC-Lavalin affair and to woo potential voters in an election year with carrots, the strategy doesn’t appear to have worked. Reflecting on the budget, 64% say it was neither good nor bad, and would symbolically just shrug their shoulders. However, among those who have an opinion, it is, on balance, negative: 25% say the budget was bad and give it two thumbs down; 11% say the budget was good and give it two thumbs up. Even among Liberal voters, most (67%) are apathetic, while 29% give it thumbs up compared to 5% who disliked it.

Historically, most budgets fail to impress. The Liberal’s budget from last year was given thumbs up by only 9% of Canadians (23% thumbs down). In 2014, a Harper-era budget performed similarly: 9% thumbs up, 20% thumbs down.

© 2019, Ipsos Limited Partnership

This polling release and the data contained in it are the sole and exclusive property of Ipsos. They are NOT designed to support any election outcome or prediction model and no license to use the polling release or the data is either granted or implied by their publication. Ipsos does not endorse, and has no responsibility for the accuracy of, the result of any predictive model that incorporates this polling data. Furthermore, any use of this information to produce polling aggregations or election models without Ipsos’ written permission will be considered a violation of our intellectual property, and Ipsos reserves the right to take appropriate legal action.

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between March 25 to 27, 2019, on behalf Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,002 adults living in Canada was polled. Weighting was then 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 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 Canadian adults 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.

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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