Poll puts Liberals back in majority territory

CTV.ca News Staff
May 2, 2004 12:12 AM ET

A new poll showing a majority government is within reach for them had some Liberals smiling Friday.

"Anything that goes up is great news. I'm not surprised," a beaming John McCallum, minister of veterans' affairs, told reporters in Ottawa.

Denis Coderre, minister responsible for La Francophonie, tried to temper his reaction, saying the polls are always volatile, adding the old nostrum, "the real survey is the day of the election."

Prime Minister Paul Martin, in Washington, played coy, saying it was nicer to comment on polls that were going up.

The poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid for CTV and The Globe and Mail suggests the Liberals under Prime Minister Paul Martin have 40 per cent support from Canadians.

The poll was conducted between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. A total of 946 Canadians were surveyed by telephone. The results are considered accurate to within 3.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

That is up from 35 per cent three weeks ago, and is a high not seen since the sponsorship scandal broke in February.

In comparison, the newly merged Conservative Party of Canada dropped five points to 23 per cent.

Support for the New Democrats was unchanged at 18 per cent, while the Bloc Quebecois had 11 per cent and the Green Party five per cent.

While the numbers have definitely improved for the Liberals, 40 per cent would still not guarantee a majority. At least 155 seats -- out of 308 -- are needed for a majority. A seating projection model used by Ipsos-Reid gives the Liberals between 153 and 157 seats.

The Conservatives would get between 66 and 70 seats, and the NDP would get between 19 and 23 seats.

It is widely expected that Martin will call an election for mid-June, with pundits speculating June 9th as the most likely date. However, Jane Taber of The Globe and Mail told CTV Newsnet that one rumor has the election being called as early as May 6.

While the Liberals aren't ensured a majority, the poll numbers are the best they have been since Auditor General Sheila Fraser tabled a Feb. 10 report detailing $100 million in misspending in the sponsorship program.

Part of the boost might be due to comments by former Tory leader Joe Clark, who told CTV's Question Period last Sunday that he would prefer to see Martin at the helm over Conservative leader Stephen Harper.

"I would be extremely worried about Mr. Harper. I would personally prefer to go with the devil we know," he said.

Lorne Nystrom, an NDP MP, played on that fear too, telling reporters, "the public aren't stupid, the public knows this the Republican Party North."

Darrell Bricker, a pollster with Ipsos-Reid, said the "hidden agenda" issue was a problematic one for the Conservatives -- especially in Ontario.

The Liberals gained eight percentage points there to 49 per cent. When they won 51 per cent of Ontario's votes in 2000, they won 100 of 103 seats.

Harper, in Quebec City to introduce 12 new candidates, dismissed the results, saying they were just a normal fluctuation.

"We're still in a strong second place, our support's solid, and we can pick up," he said.

Quebec is another major battleground, with 75 seats up for grabs. The Liberals trail the Bloc Quebecois by 13 percentage points.

Taber said if the campaign dynamic were such that it looked like the Liberals were poised to form another majority government, it could create a "bandwagon" effect in Quebec that could boost Liberal fortunes.

There was one negative in the poll. Of those surveyed, 59 per cent said they didn't think the Liberals deserved to be re-elected for a fourth time.

With a report from CTV's Joy Malbon