A trickle of PR won’t douse the Liberals’ flaming poll numbers

OTTAWA—Attention Liberal Party of Canada: you are in the midst of a five-alarm fire. Recent public opinion polls suggest you are burning up. Neither a highly publicized cabinet shuffle nor a cabinet retreat in Atlantic Canada where housing was the focus—yet not one policy was announced—has managed to douse the flames. Publicly released research from different national data firms over the last six-plus weeks have shown the Conservatives with healthy support over the Liberals. In more than a few cases, the Tories have double-digit leads in the horse-race category. What’s more concerning for the Trudeau government is the “time for change” number is nowhere close to favourable for them. Polls are polls and they do reflect a moment in time. They can change—just ask Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about that. Significantly behind in the polls for months prior to the recent Alberta election, she proved victorious on election day. No one should write off Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party, but neither should the Liberals be so naïve as to just dismiss recent data or think a simple change of tone will make things better. Our Abacus Data research released on Aug. 25 should have every smoke detector in the Liberal household screeching with concern. With a sample of more than 2,000 voters, we found the Liberals trailed the Conservatives by 12 points. What should be of equal concern is only 27 per cent of Canadians thought the prime minister should run again. Just 52 per cent of Liberals thought the same. If that were an old-school leadership convention approve-or-disapprove number, the prime minister would no longer be the prime minister. The bad news for the government didn’t stop there. In every category of voter delineated by age and gender, the Liberals trailed the Conservatives. In our regional voting breakdown, the only category where the Liberals led was in the City of Toronto. And while Liberal fortunes were sliding, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s approval numbers were up. From our work, it looks like his “friendly Pierre” ads are working. If the Liberals’ working theory is Poilievre will implode over time, they may need to go back to the drawing board. Even if it is just to make it appear to their own supporters as if they are taking their current decline in popularity seriously, the Liberals probably need to offer some contra Poilievre ads of their own. The government should also not be deaf to what the only Liberal premier in the country—Newfoundland and Labrador’s Andrew Furey—is suggesting. Furey, well-regarded and respected by Team Trudeau, took the unusual step late last week of releasing a letter he sent to the prime minister imploring him to act on the affordability crush being felt in Atlantic Canada. He forcefully argued the Liberals should pause their carbon price increases for now, and look at addressing the regional realties in the implementation of their clean fuel surcharges. As Furey pointed out, neither of these things is an abandonment of climate mitigation policy, but rather one that addresses the current impoverishment challenges people are coping with. A wise former senior Liberal elected official made a similar point to me earlier this week. Building on the Furey initiative, he opined these policies are designed to change behaviour, yes, and in part, the market is doing that right now, too. Rather than adding to people’s woes, pause the government’s actions to prevent heightening them further and causing a major backlash against climate policy. The Furey letter also provides the prime minister some room to manoeuvre and gives his caucus some space to air similar grievances under the shield of a friendly first minister offering a wide perspective. But do the prime minister, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, and other key influencers want to demonstrate that effective climate policy is so rigid it is blind to regional realities? Approaches like that not only have the ability to undo the importance of effective sustaining climate policy, but they could also inflame regional tensions. None of that will improve poll numbers either. Tim Powers is chairman of Summa Strategies and managing director of Abacus Data. He is a former adviser to Conservative political leaders. The Hill Times

A trickle of PR won’t douse the Liberals’ flaming poll numbers

No one should write off Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party, but neither should the Liberals be so naïve as to just dismiss recent data or think a simple change of tone will make things better.

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A trickle of PR won’t douse the Liberals’ flaming poll numbers

No one should write off Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party, but neither should the Liberals be so naïve as to just dismiss recent data or think a simple change of tone will make things better.

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