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Another election soon? Not likely
Thursday, April 06, 2006 at 10:27 PM
Leader
There won't be an election as long as these numbers hold:
| Party | January 23 | March |
| Conservative | 36 | 41 |
| Liberal | 30 | 22 |
| NDP | 18 | 21 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 11 | 10 |
| Green | 5 | 5 |
| Other | 1 | 1 |
And check out the approval rating for Stephen Harper:
| Leader | January 23 | March |
| Stephen Harper | 33 | 60 |
| Paul Martin / Bill Graham | 45 | 35 |
| Jack Layton | 57 | 58 |
| Gilles Duceppe | 64 | 59 |
Gilles Dueceppe's numbers reflect polling in Quebec only.
Here is a regional breakdown, showing the change since the election:
| ... | CON | LIB | NDP | BQ | Other | Undecided |
| Canada | 41 (+5) | 22 (-8) | 21 (+3) | 10 (-1) | 6 (-) | 13 |
| Atlantic | 34 (-1) | 37 (-3) | 23 (-) | -- | 6 (+3) | 13 |
| Quebec | 29 (+4) | 11 (-10) | 12 (+4) | 44 (+2) | 4 (-1) | 17 |
| Montreal | 22 (+7) | 14 (-24) | 18 (+8) | 43 (+11) | 4 (-1) | 14 |
| Ontario | 40 (+5) | 29 (-11) | 23 (+4) | -- | 8 (+1) | 11 |
| GTA | 37 (+13) | 33 (-18) | 20 (-1) | -- | 9 (+4) | 11 |
| Manitoba | 54 (+11) | 23 (-3) | 21 (-4) | -- | 3 (-3) | 16 |
| Saskatchewan | 45 (-4) | 20 (-2) | 32 (+8) | -- | 3 (-1) | 16 |
| Alberta | 66 (+1) | 6 (-9) | 19 (+7) | -- | 9 (+1) | 5 |
| British Columbia | 40 (+3) | 24 (-4) | 30 (+1) | -- | 6 (-1) | 13 |
| Vancouver | 28 (+6) | 30 (-12) | 36 (+6) | -- | 6 (-) | 9 |
The numbers are quite remarkable. Notice the wholesale collapse of Liberal support across the country. Some Liberals talk about the task of rebuilding. Those who do are being premature.
The party has yet to finish crashing. Only then can the scope of the rebuilding process be understood.
The numbers in Quebec are most sobering. The Liberals are in fourth place in Quebec, and not just overall. They are trailing every other party in the former Liberal bastion of Montreal as well.
Toronto is intriguing. Another Liberal bastion, another disaster, as the Conservatives gain 13 points, and the Liberal plummet by 18.
And let's not forget Vancouver. Kevin Chalmers would have us believe that people in BC, and in Vancouver in particular, are up in arms over the defection of David Emerson from the Liberal benches to the Conservative cabinet. But the polling suggests that in BC overall, and in Vancouver in particular, the Conservatives are enjoying more support, not less, while the Liberals have lost much of their support in addition to losing Emerson.
Poll numbers can change, but with Stephen Harper's strong start, and with the first day in Parliament being judged as a very strong showing for the new Conservative government, it seems that the Tories have a lot of political capital to spend. Meanwhile, the Liberals are going to have to lay low until they can post some sort of recovery. And with the miserable numbers seen here, potential leadership candidates are likely to have second thoughts about making a run.
And without a leader, especially one credible in Quebec, it looks like the Liberal threat to force an election sooner than later is just bluster.
Don't look to the Bloc either. Though the Bloc is recovering, the Conservatives have made gains. In particular, as a leader, Gilles Duceppe has slipped in personal popularity. He'll be lying low for a while, given the anger simmering under the surface in the separatist camp about how Duceppe allowed what started as a clean sweep for the Bloc in Quebec turn into Conservative Party success story.
Jack Layton is the only other leader with good news in this poll. The NDP has gained, as have the Conservatives. This in itself suggests that the Liberals are bleeding support to both the left and the right -- the nightmare scenario for a centrist party. But the NDP doesn't have the seats to force an election, not while it is in the interests of the Liberals and the Bloc to find any excuse to hold off.
As long as the Conservatives avoid giving them any such excuse (and it would have to be something huge), we can expect a relatively stable parliament for some time.
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Angry in the Great White North by Steve Janke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at stevejanke.com.