Nearly two in three Canadians have a bad impression of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and half of them want him to resign before the next election, according to a new poll.
While affordability, housing and the public debt top the list of reasons people want Mr. Trudeau gone, one in five respondents said they wanted him to resign simply because she is “tired of him.”
The Léger survey for The Canadian Press suggests widespread dissatisfaction with the Liberal government on everything from housing affordability and inflation to health care, government spending and climate change.
The survey was conducted online in Canada over three days last weekend, and 1,612 people responded. Although the results have been statistically weighted, it is not possible to assign a margin of error to them because online surveys are not considered truly random samples.
This result comes after months of unfavorable polls for Mr. Trudeau and the Liberals, who have just passed the eighth anniversary of their 2015 electoral victory.
In Canada, 30% of respondents said they were satisfied with Mr. Trudeau’s government, while 63% said they were not. In Quebec, 34% of respondents said they were satisfied with the government and 61% were dissatisfied.
Varied popularity for Poilievre
Mr. Trudeau is well ahead of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on the question of who would be the best prime minister, with 27% of those surveyed supporting Mr. Poilievre compared to 17% for Mr. Trudeau.
More Quebecers nevertheless continue to think that Justin Trudeau would make a better prime minister (19%) than Mr. Poilievre (17%). It is the same in the Atlantic provinces, where the Liberal leader would be a better prime minister for 23% of respondents, while 18% think the same of Mr. Poilievre.
In Canada, about a third of respondents also said they had a positive impression of Mr. Poilievre (35%) and Mr. Trudeau (33%). But 61% of respondents said they had a negative impression of Mr. Trudeau, compared to 45% who had a negative impression of Mr. Poilievre. In Quebec, more than half (51%) of people said they had a negative impression of the Conservative leader.
Mr. Poilievre, an MP for nearly 20 years and leader of the Conservative Party for a little over a year, remains a stranger to some Canadians. One in five respondents said they were unsure whether they had a positive or negative impression of him.
According to the poll, the Conservative Party would come first (31%) in Canada if the elections took place now, but this would not be the case in Quebec, where it would be credited with 18% of the vote. The Bloc Québécois would win 26% of the votes, the Liberals 23% and the NDP 10% in La Belle Province.
When it comes to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, 43% of respondents have a positive opinion and 41% a negative opinion, but only 16% of them said he would make the best prime minister.
Housing and inflation
More than four in five respondents said they were unhappy with how Mr. Trudeau handled the issue of affordable housing, and three in four were unhappy with how the Liberals handled the issue inflation and the affordability crisis in general.
Nearly three in five people are dissatisfied with the way the government is handling climate change, two in three people are dissatisfied with its management of public finances, and more than half do not like the way the Liberals manage Canada’s relations with China and India.
Nearly 60% of French speakers across Canada also feel that Justin Trudeau does not help enough to protect the French language.
Half of Canadians surveyed said Mr. Trudeau should resign before the next election. One in four Liberal voters said they should resign. Only 28% of all respondents said he should stay in office.
Nearly three in four people said it was time for a new prime minister because Mr. Trudeau has been in power too long, while two-thirds said they didn’t think he had a clear vision of the future.
A new Liberal leader would influence the vote of more than a third of respondents who reported voting Liberal in the past, but who no longer will with Mr. Trudeau at the helm. Some 10 per cent of respondents said they would be very likely to return to the Liberals with a new leader in place, and 29 per cent said they would very likely do so. However, 61% don’t think a new leader could make a difference in their decision.
More than one in four NDP supporters responded that they would likely change their vote to the Liberals to try to prevent the Conservatives from winning.