Nearly half of Canadians would support an election being called if the federal watchdog finds Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to have violated the Conflict of Interest Act again over the WE charity affair, a new poll suggests.
The survey by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies also suggests the WE controversy has taken a bite out of Trudeau’s popularity, as well as that of the federal Liberal party, putting the Conservatives within striking distance of victory. Forty-nine per cent of respondents also felt that the WE controversy has hurt their opinion of Trudeau while 42 per cent said the same thing about the Liberal Party. Fewer than five per cent said it had improved their view of either.
Perhaps most troubling for the prime minister and his Liberals is that support for the party among decided voters has slipped by six percentage points in the last two weeks, with the Conservatives, who have not yet elected their new leader, reaping the most recent benefits.
“To me these are numbers that will certainly worry or concern the Liberals at this moment because even though it’s in the summer, this is raising a lot of eyebrows,” said Leger executive vice-president Christian Bourque.
The online poll of 1,531 adult Canadians took place July 31 to Aug. 2, in the days following Trudeau’s appearance before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about the deal with WE. It cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered truly random.
Leave a comment