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ELECTION ANYONE?
SPEAKER’S RULING MAY NOT TEMPT ANY PARTY TO FORCE AN ELECTION
[Ottawa – April 29, 2010] - There is again talk of
a parliamentary showdown, following this week’s
HIGHLIGHTS
ruling by the Speaker of the House of Commons • National federal vote intention:
on the release of documents relating to the ¤31.9% CPC
Afghan detainees. But the last poll taken before ¤26.6% LPC
the ruling suggests there are reasons for both ¤17.6% NDP
the two major parties to be wary of any
¤10.9% Green
¤9.7% BQ
brinksmanship that might force an election.
¤3.3% other

While the Conservatives are in first place, they • Direction of government:

continue to track well below their performance in ¤ 43.8% wrong direction
the last election with less that a third of ¤ 43.2% right direction
Canadians saying they would vote for them if an ¤ 13.0% don’t know/no response
election were held. That suggests that a majority
would be difficult to achieve, a reduced minority • Approval rating – Harper:
would be quite possible, and even a defeat would ¤ 33% approve
be conceivable. ¤ 49% disapprove
¤ 18% do not know/no response
As for the Liberals, they continue to be mired
below the 30% threshold as they were in the last • Approval rating – Ignatieff:
¤ 20% approve
election.
¤ 51% disapprove
¤ 29% do not know/no response
The news for the two major party leaders is
hardly more encouraging: Stephen Harper has a
• Approval rating – Layton:
decisively negative job-approval rating; Michael ¤ 43% approve
Ignatieff’s negative rating is even worse. ¤ 26% disapprove
¤ 31% do not know/no response
If Jack Layton seems somewhat feistier on the
possibility of an election over the issue of the • Approval rating – Obama:
detainee documents that the Liberals do, it may ¤ 70% approve
be in part because he, alone among the three ¤ 12% disapprove
national party leaders, has a positive job- ¤ 18% do not know/no response
approval rating, and strongly so. In terms of
Please note that the methodology is provided at the
potential gains in an election, the NDP is the end of this document.
second-choice for just as many voters as the
Liberals are, meaning his party has proportionately much more upside potential. (The Tories trail
both the national opposition parties as a second choice, and are struggling to compete with the
Greens in this category.)

It’s a measure of Canadians’ lack of enthusiasm for their political options that fewer of them are

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willing to express a second choice among the parties than in the past.

“In this fragmented political landscape, Canadians have no clear political champion at the
moment,” said EKOS President Frank Graves. “If there is a positive side to this, it may be to
encourage the major parties to work out a compromise on the issue of the detainee documents,
as the Speaker has encouraged them to do.”

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Top Line Results:

Federal vote intention

Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

50

40
31.9
30 26.6

20 17.6
10.9 9.7
10
3.3
0
CPC LPC NDP GP BQ Other
Other

Weekly tracking of federal vote intention

50

40

30

20

10

Other
Line
0 6
2008
Oct- Nov- Dec- Jan- Feb- Mar- Apr- May- Jun- Jul- Aug- Sep- Oct- Nov- Dec- Jan- Feb- Mar- Apr-
Election
08 08 08 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 10 10 10 10
Results

Note: The data on federal vote intention are based on decided voters only.
Our survey also finds that 13.9% of Canadians are undecided/ineligible to vote.

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Decided voters; most recent data point April 21-27 (n=1988)

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Direction of government
Q. All things considered, would you say the Government of Canada is moving in the right direction or the wrong
direction?

60 Wrong direction
Right direction

50

40

30

20
May-09 Jun-09 Jul-09 Aug-09 Sep-09 Oct-09 Nov-09 Dec-09 Jan-10 Feb-10 Mar-10 Apr-10

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point April 21-27 (n=half sample)

Job approval ratings

Q. Do you approve or disapprove of the way … is handling his job?

100
Approve
20
33 Disapprove
80 43
DK/NR
70
60
51
49 26
40

12
20
29 31
18 18
0
...Stephen Harper… …Michael Ignatieff… ...Jack Layton… …Barack Obama…

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; May 7-28 (n=3935); May 29-June
BASE:9 Canadians;
(n=3054); June
April 10-16
21-27 (n=XXXX)
(n=2303)

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 Tracking job approval ratings for Stephen Harper
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Jan/09 Apr/09 Jul/09 Oct/09 Jan/10 Apr/10

Approve Disapprove DK/NR

Tracking job approval ratings for Michael Ignatieff

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Jan/09 Apr/09 Jul/09 Oct/09 Jan/10 Apr/10

Approve Disapprove DK/NR

Tracking job approval ratings for Jack Layton

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Jan/09 Apr/09 Jul/09 Oct/09 Jan/10 Apr/10

Approve Disapprove DK/NR

Tracking job approval ratings for Barack Obama

100

80

60

40

20

0
Jan/09 Apr/09 Jul/09 Oct/09 Jan/10 Apr/10

Approve Disapprove DK/NR

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point April 21-27 (n=2303)

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Second choice
Q. Which party would be your second choice?

FIRST CHOICE
Second
SECOND CHOICE Choice CPC LPC NDP GP BQ Other
(overall)

10.2 -- 20.2 10.9 13.4 11.8 12.6

17.5 25.3 -- 35.3 23.5 12.0 11.5

17.4 12.9 36.3 -- 19.9 23.1 8.0

12.7 12.5 13.4 21.2 -- 14.1 23.4

3.4 1.6 3.5 6.7 7.3 -- 1.2

Other 2.5 3.7 1.8 1.5 2.7 1.4 --

No second choice 36.3 44.0 24.8 24.4 33.1 37.6 43.3

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Eligible voters; April 21-27 (n=2254)

Vote intention ceiling (first and second choice combined)

Feb-10 Apr-10
100

80

60
45.6 44.1
40.3 42.2
40 34.0 35.0
24.6 23.6
20 13.1 13.1

0
CPC LPC NDP GP BQ

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; May 7-27 (n=10,077)

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Methodology:

EKOS’ weekly tracking polls are conducted using Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) technology,
which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone,
rather than telling them to an operator.

In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual land-line/cell
phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with both a
landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households. This
dual frame yields a near perfect unweighted distribution on age group and gender, something
almost never seen with traditional landline RDD sample or interviewer-administered surveys.

The field dates for this survey are April 21 – April 27, 2010.1 In total, a random sample of 2,303
Canadians aged 18 and over responded to the survey (including a sub-sample of 1,988 decided
voters). The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-2.0 percentage points, 19
times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error
margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically
weighted to ensure the samples composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada
according to Census data.

1
Please note that these dates are not inclusive of the weekends, as we do not survey on Saturday or Sunday.

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