With a federal election call likely coming in a matter of days, the Liberals are looking at a massive resurgence in the polls.
A new poll from the Angus Reid Institute puts the party — which has been struggling for years — in majority territory.
The poll shows the Liberals have surged in the polls to 42 per cent, five points above the Conservatives.
Just three months ago, the Liberals were polling at a near all-time low of just 16 per cent. But like in January, Angus Reid Institute President Shachi Kurl says polls are just a snapshot in time, and things could change between now and the vote.
“If this trend were to hold, we would be seeing a Liberal landslide majority to the same proportions that we saw all the way back in 2015, so it’s really hard to say whether these numbers will hold, but it does represent a stunning comeback, at least for now,” said Kurl.
She says while household issues, like cost of living, are extremely important, Canadians have latched onto the issue of Donald Trump’s threats to the country’s sovereignty, and that’s driving the Liberal resurgence.
“We’ve heard quite a bit of silence — really, not very much from the Conservatives. They have stayed focused on an ‘Axe The Tax’ election. They stayed focused on domestic affairs, on cost of living,” Kurl explained.
She says the Conservatives’ messaging hasn’t hit as well as the Liberals’ on the trade war issue. But, Kurl adds, the strategy could pay off for the Conservatives if money issues become a bigger priority for Canadians through the campaign period.
Meanwhile, the poll puts the federal NDP in the single digits — at just 9 per cent. Kurl says much of the surge in support for Liberals “is driven, actually, by NDP voters who are stampeding away” from Jagmeet Singh and the NDP.
“Of course, we don’t know if they’re going to stay there or if they’re going to go back to the NDP,” Kurl admitted.
She says Prime Minister Mark Carney is now under a lot of pressure to live up to what Canadians think he is capable of doing.
“It’s one thing to be running as the underdog. It’s another thing to be running as a front-runner when you don’t have a tremendous amount of political experience in the bare-knuckles, cut-and-thrust of campaign dynamics.”
