Trudeau’s party takes hit in poll

New polling figures show Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party has been overtaken by the Conservatives amid waning support among Canadians for Covid-19 vaccine and mask mandates, and against the backdrop of a major crackdown on the trucker-led protests.

The poll, conducted by Mainstreet Research, showed that voter support for the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has increased by 10 percentage points in the past month. The CPC would be the leading vote-getter if an election were held today, garnering 36% of ballots, compared with 28% for the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC), the survey found.

The polling was conducted last week, starting two days after Trudeau invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act. That move suspended civil liberties to quash the Freedom Convoy protests and take such actions as freezing the bank accounts of demonstrators without court orders, increasing police powers, and subjecting fundraising platforms to laws normally applied to money launderers and terrorist financiers. The survey was completed before footage from Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, showed protesters apparently being trampled by police-mounted horses, dispersed with tear gas, and pummeled with rifle butts.

Just 36% of Canadians still support Covid-19 restrictions, compared with 55% who favor ending all government pandemic measures, the Mainstreet poll showed. As recently as two months ago, 56% of Canadians said they would support another round of Covid-19 lockdowns. About 39% of respondents to the latest survey said they strongly oppose Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, while 38% strongly support the move.

A Maru Public Opinion poll released earlier this month showed that just 16% of Canadians would vote for Trudeau based on his actions during the first two weeks of the Freedom Convoy trucker protests. Nearly half of respondents said they believed he was “not up to the job of being prime minister.”

On a separate topic, the Mainstreet survey showed relatively strong support, especially among LPC voters, for sending Canadian troops to Ukraine if Russia invades the country. More than 48% of respondents, including 58% of Liberal voters, said they favor sending Canadian forces to fight Russian invaders, while 38% said they oppose such a military deployment.

An Economist/YouGov poll released earlier this month showed that only 13% of Americans believe it would be a “good idea” to send US troops to tangle with Russian forces in Ukraine.