OTTAWA — Snowflakes weren’t the only thing plummeting over the nation’s capital this Christmas.
New polling released on Christmas Eve by Leger suggests that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now ranks third (11%) among other party leaders as Canadians’ preferred choice for PM, behind Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (31%) and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh (13%).
Sixty-nine per cent said Trudeau should step down as party leader, sentiments felt more or less equally across the country.
Supporters of all parties overwhelmingly felt Trudeau should step aside — except for Liberal voters, of whom only 33% wanted Trudeau to step down, and 50% said he should stay on.
Liberal voters are equally indecisive over who should take over the party — with 46% saying they didn’t know who should replace Trudeau as leader.
Of those who had an opinion, 21% said Chrystia Freeland, followed by 7% for Mark Carney, Dominic LeBlanc and “someone else.”
Only 5% supported Anita Anand as leader, followed by 4% for Melanie Joly, 2% for François-Philippe Champagne, and 1% for former B.C. premier Christy Clark.
Nationwide, those who thought Trudeau would make the best PM was highest in Quebec with 15%, followed by Atlantic Canada at 14%, B.C. with 13%, Ontario with 10%, Manitoba and Saskatchewan at 7%, and Alberta at 5%.
Support for Poilievre ranked highest in Alberta at 41%, followed by 33% in Ontario, 32% in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 30% in B.C., 29% in the Atlantic provinces, and a nationwide low of 22% in Quebec.
While 80% of CPC supporters thought Poilievre would make the best PM and 68% of NDP supporters picked Singh, only 59% of declared Liberal voters picked Trudeau as the best candidate for PM.
Five per cent of Liberals thought somebody else would make a better prime minister, while 15% reported “none of the above.”
As for national voting intentions, 43% of Canadians expressed support for the Conservatives, while the Liberals fell a percentage point to 20% and the NDP held steady at 19%.
Just under three-quarters (72%) of Canadians say they’re dissatisfied with the Trudeau Liberal government, a three-point drop from previous polling.
Of the 23% who expressed satisfaction with Trudeau’s government, only 4% reported feeling “very satisfied” with the PM’s performance.
As expected, three-quarters of all declared Liberal voters expressed satisfaction with the Trudeau Liberals, while 95% of CPC voters felt the opposite.
The survey was conducted among 1,521 adult Canadians Dec. 20-22 from Leger’s online panel.
As margins of error cannot be attributed to online panels, a comparable sample would produce a margin of error of ±2.51%, 19 times out of 20.
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