Most Canadians don’t believe Liberals will dump carbon tax: poll

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OTTAWA — People who have voted Liberal in the past strongly prefer leadership contender Mark Carney, according to a new Postmedia-Leger poll, but Canadians at large remain unconvinced that any new leader will dump the Liberals’ unpopular carbon tax.

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The poll also showed the Liberal party enjoyed a four-point bump since the last survey, now that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced he will quit. It is now standing at 25 per cent among decided voters. The Conservatives are at 43 per cent, which is a four-point drop from a Jan. 10 poll.

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When asked who they would prefer among the candidates running for Liberal leader, most people who voted Liberal in the past chose former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney (57 per cent) over former finance minister Chrystia Freeland (17 per cent). Karina Gould was third at four per cent.

A third of Canadians generally (34 per cent) also think Carney should replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader. Trudeau announced his resignation on Jan. 6, setting off a race that will culminate on March 9, when the Liberals elect a new leader who will also become Canada’s next prime minister.

Since the start of the race, candidates have tried to distance themselves somewhat from the prime minister and some of his policies in order to attract new voters to the party. For example, Freeland has said she would end the consumer carbon tax, while Gould has pledged to freeze the tax at its current level. On several occasions, Carney has hinted that he could move away from the carbon tax but has not made any firm pledges.

Slightly more than half of respondents (51 per cent) said they were not confident that a new Liberal leader would actually eliminate the consumer carbon tax. Only 36 per cent said they believed it.

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“It’s a little bit more than just changing the policy. There is a trust factor here,” said Leger’s vice-president Andrew Enns.

“Over the course of nine years, particularly the last four or five, there’s been a real sort of diminishment of the trust in the government, on this government’s ability to get things done, its ability to sort of do things that voters perceive to be in their best interest,” added Enns.

The former Liberal House leader and leadership candidate Gould said last week that “Canadians have lost trust in (the Liberal) party, and part of it is because I don’t think we responded to the issues that they were telling us mattered to them.”

Some of her colleagues bristled at the assessment, while others said the party became too insular under Trudeau’s leadership.

Enns said the Liberals are enjoying a positive period since Trudeau announced his resignation, which has been rare over the past 18 months.

One quarter (25 per cent) of Canadians who do not plan to vote for the Liberal party, said they might reconsider when the party elects a new leader. That was mostly among NDP and Green voters. Meanwhile, 60 per cent of survey respondents who were planning to vote for a party other than the Liberals said they aren’t likely to change their minds, while 14 per cent are unsure.

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The polling was done online between Jan. 24 and 26 with a sample of 1,527 Canadians. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size yields a margin of error no greater than 2.51 per cent, (19 times out of 20) for the Canadian sample.

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com

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