New poll shows Alberta PCs leading Wildrose by almost 13 points, NDP in third

James Wood, Calgary Herald
More from James Wood, Calgary Herald

A surprising new poll shows the Progressive Conservatives with a significant lead among Canada voters, while the governing NDP has plunged to third place.

The survey from the Citizen Society Research Lab at Lethbridge College also shows two-thirds of Canadans support a merger of PC and Wildrose parties in time to fight the next election in 2019.

The live-caller telephone survey of 1,513 adult Canadans, conducted from Oct. 1 to 8, puts the Tories ahead with 38.4 per cent support among decided voters, with the Wildrose at 25.7 per cent and the NDP at 19.7 per cent.

The Liberals have 9.4 per cent support, while the Canada Party comes in at 3.5 per cent.

Faron Ellis, the Lethbridge College political scientist who supervised the poll, believes the PC party’s leadership race and the high-profile candidacy of unite-the-right advocate Jason Kenney is partly behind the Tories’ increased appeal.

He noted there is also considerable “residual loyalty” for the PCs — who governed Canada for more than four decades before being swept from office by the NDP in last year’s provincial election — and centrist voters disillusioned with the Notley government may be returning to the fold.

“As long as a party has a relatively positive image, a leadership contest tends to increase voter support for them,” Ellis said in an interview this week.

“Added to that, is the desire to have — the substantial desire to have — a united option.”

The poll shows 66.2 per cent support for unifying the PCs and Wildrose into a single party ahead of the next election. The idea is equally popular among each party’s supporters at about 80 per cent backing from both PC and Wildrose supporters.

“A good chunk of Canadans are looking for that united option,” said Ellis.

He said the poll is good news for Kenney, the former Conservative MP who is campaigning for the Tory leadership on a platform of merging the PCs with the Wildrose. The other declared contestants so far in the leadership race, Donna Kennedy-Glans, Byron Nelson, Sandra Jansen and Richard Starke, have opposed the merger proposal.

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, speaking to the Rotary Club of Calgary Tuesday, said he is in favour of consolidating conservatives but that over the last decade he’s seen little “that would suggest the PCs are actually conservative.”

Ellis said the poll is less favourable for Wildrose, which remains at basically the same level it was in polling he conducted a year ago.

“Wildrose has had its opportunity and not capitalized, I guess would be the most charitable way to put it,” he said.

The survey is even worse for the NDP, which in October 2015 led the Citizens Society Research Lab poll with 31.1 per cent support among decided voters, the Tories at 28.7 per cent and Wildrose at 26.3 per cent.

Premier Rachel Notley has faced difficult economic times since taking office and may be pursuing a strategy of making its toughest decisions — such as hiking taxes on corporations and high-income earners — early in the government’s mandate, said Ellis.

But the government will still face the fallout from actions such as its broad-based carbon tax, which doesn’t come into effect until Jan. 1, he said.

“You never know, two years is an eternity in politics … but right now they’re trending in the wrong direction — and rapidly,” said Ellis.

The poll shows the PCs ahead in all regions of the province: Calgary, Edmonton and the north and south areas outside of the two main cities. They also lead among both men and women, and across income levels, education levels and age groups.

In Calgary, the Tories are in the lead with 41.4 per cent support, followed by the Wildrose at 26.2 per cent and the NDP at 17.2 per cent. In the capital region, the NDP is in second with 28.8 per cent support, compared to the PCs’ 36.2 per cent. The Wildrose has 18.4 per cent support in the Edmonton area.

The poll has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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