Canadians Hold Mixed Feelings About Trudeau’s Performance

The Liberal Party holds a nine-point advantage over the Conservative Party across the country.

Vancouver, BC [May 8, 2020] – Canadians are divided in their assessment of the first four and a half years of Justin Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister, a new Research Co. poll has found.

In the online survey of a representative national sample, 48% of Canadians think Trudeau has performed “about the same” as they expected. Similar proportions of Canadians believe Trudeau has been “better” than they envisioned (24%) or “worse” than they anticipated (25%).

“More than a third of Canadians aged 55 and over (36%) believe Trudeau has been worse than they expected,” says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co. “Significantly fewer Canadians aged 35-to-54 (21%) and 18-to-34 (18%) feel the same way.”

Two-in-five Canadians (41%) believe Trudeau has accomplished “little” as head of government. Comparable quantities of Canadians believe he has achieved “much” (24%) or that it is “too early” to judge his accomplishments (also 24%) since he took office in November 2015.

While 40% of Canadians who voted for the Liberal Party in last year’s federal election believe Trudeau as accomplished “much” since becoming prime minister, the proportion falls to 27% among those who cast ballots for New Democratic Party (NDP) candidates and to just 6% among those who supported the Conservative Party.

Respondents to this survey were also asked to evaluate if 10 different issues are better, the same, or worse now than six years ago, when Stephen Harper served as Canada’s prime minister.

At least one-in-five Canadians believe that four issues are better now: Canada’s reputation in the world (30%), Canada’s role in global affairs (25%), the environment (21%) and ethics and accountability (20%).

Fewer Canadians believe there has been an improvement on public safety (19%), health care (also 19%), national unity (18%), the Canadian economy (16%), taxation (13%) and national defence (11%).

If a federal election were held today, the governing Liberals would garner the backing of 39% of decided voters. The Conservatives are in second place with 30%, followed by the New Democrats with 17%, the Green Party with 7%, the Bloc Québécois with 5%, and the People’s Party with 1%.

The Liberals are particularly popular in Ontario (44%), Quebec (40%) and British Columbia (39%). The Conservatives are ahead in Alberta (45%) and Manitoba and Saskatchewan (38%).

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