Are the Conservatives in Trouble?

A recently completed EKOS poll released this week shows the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) down to its traditional base halfway through its first majority term in office.

In power now for six and half years (the first four and a half years were in minority governments), a series of bad decisions on everything from F-35 fighter jets, aboriginal issues, the environment, the Senate, and a sputtering economy have Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government reaching into the bottom of their bag of tricks to pull out – wait for it – legislation on crime by new Canadians. Yep, the Tories want to repeal the citizenship of those whose maintain dual citizenship who are convicted of crimes.

Anyway, the EKOS poll has some interesting findings. It surveyed nearly 5,000 Canadians, so it was a large sampling, and found that CPC support was down below 30% to 29.3% (and only 33.7% for "likely" voters). Furthermore, Harper's job approval rating nearly mirrored that of his government, at 28%, while 47% of the populace disapproved. More than half of Canadians – 51.2% -- thought that his government was taking the country in the wrong direction.

Other parties fared better. The New Democratic Party (NDP) was down 4.3% from the 2011 election, 30.6% to 26.3%, but in "likely" voters, only .5%, to 30.1%. Thomas Mulcair had a job approval rating of 28% as well, but a "Didn't Know/No Response" rating of 48%, showing he's still got a long way to go to get his message out there.

The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) was up a whopping 5.7% from the 2011 election, from 18.9% to 24.6%, but strangely less than half that, 2.3%, to 21.2% amongst "likely" voters, suggesting many voters may be "parking" their votes with the Liberals. The putative future leader of the Liberals, Justin Trudeau, had the highest approval rating, at 33%.

There's a great deal more data in the report, which runs to 20 pages, and is available here. Information such as that more than 10% more men than women support the Conservatives. Or that nearly 1/3 of NDP voters use only a cell phone, not a land line. Or that the Liberal Party is still in first place in Atlantic Canada. Or that the Green Party has surged from 3.9% in the 2011 election to 9.5% now, largely based on a 15% return in B.C.

The next federal election is still more than two years away, which means the Conservatives still have just over a year to make amends. Because, once Canadians have decided to change their governments, and this occurs by the beginning of their fourth year in office, they don't change their minds.