Weekly Writ 3/12: What a difference a year makes
Floor-crossing, byelections put majority in sight for Mark Carney
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A year ago this week, Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership and was sworn in as Canada’s 24th prime minister.
While he’s still prime minister today, a whole lot of other things have changed.
And that includes the standings in the House of Commons, which seems to be changing on any given day. Late on Tuesday night, NDP interim leader Don Davies announced that Nunavut MP Lori Idlout was crossing the floor from his party to the Liberals. More on that in a bit.
A year ago today, there were 153 Liberal, 120 Conservative, 33 Bloc, 24 NDP, two Green and three Independent MPs. Now, with Idlout’s crossing, there are 170 Liberals, 141 Conservatives, 22 Bloc, six New Democrats and one Green. With three vacancies in the House, the governing caucus is tied with the opposition caucus.
It seems likely that the Liberals will shortly secure their majority, thanks to the three byelections scheduled on April 13.
Another thing that has changed over the last year is the support for the Liberals — and that shift in support partially explains why there have now been four opposition MPs who have made the journey across the aisle.
Almost exactly one year ago, a poll by Léger taken around Mark Carney’s leadership victory awarded the Liberals 37% support, putting them in a tie with the Conservatives. The NDP trailed in third with 11%.
(Even that reflected a remarkable shift in support. Just two months earlier, Léger pegged the Conservative lead at 26 percentage points).
The most recent Léger poll now puts the Liberals at 49%, followed by the Conservatives at 35% and the NDP at just 5%. In one year, Léger has recorded a 12-point increase for the Liberals as the Conservatives have slid two points and the NDP has dropped six.
Satisfaction with Justin Trudeau’s government at the time of it being handed over to Mark Carney was 37%, with 57% dissatisfied. Now, Léger gives Carney’s government a 59% satisfaction rating, with just 33% dissatisfied.
Comparing these two Léger polls, we see that support for the Liberals has jumped dramatically across all regions and demographic groups.
The biggest increases have come among women (a gain of 18 points), those aged 18 to 34 (16 points) and people living in British Columbia (16 points). Smaller gains have occurred among people in the Prairies (seven points), men (eight points) and those aged 35-54 (nine points).
Léger records no big jump in Conservative support among any demographic. They have as much support today as they did in Léger’s poll a year ago among women, people under the age of 55 and those living in urban centres. But they are down four points among those over the age of 55 and are down five points in suburban areas — a big electoral problem for the Conservatives.
Perhaps the most problematic shift for the Conservatives, however, is in the head-to-head match up. Polling by Nanos Research has given Mark Carney a big lead over Pierre Poilievre on the preferred prime minister question since the election. But the gap has widened over the last few weeks.
The last iteration of Nanos’s four-week rolling poll now has Carney at 57% on preferred prime minister, the highest it has ever been and higher even than Trudeau managed in his post-2015 honeymoon. Poilievre has now dropped to 22%. The gap between them is 35 points, wider than it’s ever been and wider than the advantage Poilievre ever enjoyed over Trudeau.
A lot has changed in 12 months. A year ago, Carney presided over a minority government and faced an uncertain election ahead of him. Now, he might be days away from a majority — and years from needing to go back to the electorate.
In case you missed it on Monday, I broke down the latest fundraising figures for the NDP leadership race. They show Avi Lewis holding a wide lead over the rest of the field.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on the floor-crossing in the House and the stakes of the three byelections set for April 13. Plus, the Manitoba PCs lose an MLA.
Polls show a double-digit lead for the Liberals nationwide. Plus, new numbers on how Canadians perceive the Carney government, where things stand in Alberta and B.C. and whether anyone knows who is running for the leader of the B.C. Conservatives or Ontario Liberals.
#EveryElectionProject: Ralph Klein’s third win in Alberta.
Upcoming milestone for Mark Carney.
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Floor-crossing, byelections put Carney on cusp of majority
The pieces that will push the Liberals to, and perhaps beyond, the threshold of 172 seats needed for a majority government were put into place this week with the calling of three byelections for April 13 and the crossing of Nunavut MP Lori Idlout from the New Democrats to the Liberals.
What does it mean for the next few weeks and months — and for the opposition parties?