Canadians prefer left-leaning minority: poll

CTV.ca News Staff
June 27, 2004 11:16 AM ET

With polls suggesting the election race will be a tight one, the possibility of a minority government is as likely as ever. But some minority government combinations are more acceptable to voters than others.

In an Ispos-Reid polled conducted for CTV News and The Globe and Mail released Saturday, pollsters asked voters which minority combinations they'd most like to see.

Voters were asked: If Canada has a minority government after the next election, would the following be acceptable or unacceptable for you: A Liberal-led minority government supported by the NDP?

More than half of those polled (56 per cent) said they'd prefer this left-leaning combination.

Among decided NDP voters, a Liberal/NDP coalition seems especially palatable. Eighty-one per cent would approve of the partnership.

Seventy-one per cent of decided Liberal voters agree.

But if the Conservatives manage to come out on top, a coalition with the NDP doesn't seem to have as much approval.

Voters were asked: If Canada has a minority government after the next election, would the following be acceptable or unacceptable for you: A Conservative-led minority government supported by the NDP?

Less than half of those polled -- 47 per cent -- would approve of such a partnership.

The Ipsos-Reid poll shows almost two thirds, or 64 per cent, of decided Conservative voters would find the combination acceptable.

But fewer NDP supporters like the idea. Fifty-nine per cent of them would approve. Still, that's not the most unpopular combination.

Those polled were least likely to support a Conservative minority backed by the Bloc Quebecois. Just 28 per cent of respondents approved of that partnership.

Voters were also asked about other minority combinations. Here's how they responded when asked whether they approved of different combinations:

• 52 per cent feel a "Liberal-led minority government supported by the Conservatives" would be acceptable to them;
• 48 per cent feel a "Conservative-led minority government supported by the Liberals" would be acceptable to them;
• 31 per cent feel a "Liberal-led minority government supported by the Bloc Quebecois" would be acceptable to them

Methodology 
These are findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll conducted from June 21 to June 23, 2004. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 2000 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.