Health and Pocketbook Issues will Drive Vote Choice in Upcoming Ontario Election, Say Voters

Toronto, ON, April 25, 2022 – The issue agenda for Ontarians in the upcoming election will largely be driven by healthcare and pocketbook issues, along with an assessment of how the incumbent Tories have handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News, healthcare (31%), the handling of COVID-19 (25%), lowering taxes (24%), help with the cost of day-to-day needs (like groceries and gas) and help to make housing more affordable for the middle class and families (21%) are the top-five issues that Ontarians say are the most important in determining how they will vote on Election Day.  Rounding out the top ten issues – but clearly in a second tier of importance – are the economy and jobs more broadly (17%), tackling climate change (15%), lowering energy costs (14%), having a plan for economic recovery from the pandemic (14%) and the creation of more low-cost/affordable housing for the poor and homeless (13%).

All of the top-five issues revolve around health and pocketbook issues, which appear poised to dominate the issue agenda. Other issues that have been more important in the past have now fallen down the rankings, including climate change (15% -- 7^th position), debt repayment and balancing the budget (7% -- 13^th position), public transit (5% -- tied for 16^th position) and Indigenous issues (5% -- tied for 16^th position).

The full list of election issues tested is below, along with the proportion of Ontarians who say that it is among the top-three issues in determining how they will vote in the upcoming election.

The parties will spend much of their time talking about the issues that are most important to voters of their own party, in order to shore up support and get out the vote. The top-five issues and their relative importance look quite different for voters of each of the three major parties:

• For Progressive Conservative voters, after healthcare, issues two through five are all economic and pocketbook issues: healthcare (35%), lowering taxes (33%), economic recovery from the pandemic (25%), helping with the cost of day-to-day living expenses (25%) and the economy and jobs (24%).
• For Liberal voters, the handling of COVID-19 is far and away the top issue (37%), followed by healthcare (31%), help to make housing more affordable for the middle class and working families (24%), tackling climate change (24%) and help with the cost of day-to-day needs (20%).
• For NDP voters, healthcare dominates the vote calculus (41%), with the handling of COVID-19 (31%), help to make housing more affordable for the middle class and working families (25%), tackling climate change (20%) and a tie between help with day-to-day expenses (19%) and the creation of more low-cost/affordable housing (19%) rounding out the top-five rankings.

Winning an election campaign is about differentiating oneself as the best to lead on the issues that matter most to voters. The chart below examines the most important issues of the campaign and identifies, among those who chose each respective issues as influential on their vote, which party Ontarians believe is best to deal with each issue.

Which Party is Best to Deal With Top Issues

Of the top-ten issues of the campaign, the Liberals lead on two issues (COVID-19 and climate change), the NDP leads on two issues (healthcare and affordable housing), while the Tories lead on five (taxes, help with day-to-day expenses, the economy and jobs, lowering energy costs and economic recovery from the pandemic). While the Liberals have been improving their share of the popular vote, in order to make more substantial gains they will need to convince voters that they are best to lead on more issues.

One issue is still very much up for grabs: making housing more affordable for the middle class and working families. Among those who prioritize this issue, a full one in three (33%) believe that none of the parties is best to deal with the issue and that they are all the same, ahead of the roughly two in ten who believe that the NDP (25%), Liberals (22%) or PCs (18%) are best to lead on this file. The federal budget was full of promises to tackle the issue, and there’s no doubt that each of the provincial parties will now be jockeying to present themselves as having the best ideas to keep the dream of home ownership alive for first-time buyers. 

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between April 13 and 14, 2022, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of n = 1001 Ontarians aged 18+ was interviewed online, via the Ipsos I-Say panel and non-panel sources. 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 ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Ontarians 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
CEO, Ipsos Global Public Affairs
+1 416 324 2001
[email protected]

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