The federal Liberals have pushed further ahead of the Conservatives in voter support and almost half of Canadians surveyed think they’ll will win the election, a new poll suggests.
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The good news for the Liberals came just hours before former housing minister Sean Fraser announced he would be reversing his decision not to run in the election, joining a handful of MPs who have made the same decision in recent weeks.
With polls showing a large portion of his party’s support bleeding to the Liberals, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said there are “massive challenges” ahead for his party.
At a campaign stop north of Toronto, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre struck a combative tone and claimed Liberal Leader Mark Carney isn’t dedicated to Canada because a company he was previously involved with has financial interests outside the country.
The survey, conducted by Leger for The Canadian Press, reports that 44 per cent of decided voters surveyed say they would vote Liberal in the upcoming election, ahead of the Conservatives at 38 per cent.
The NDP are in a distant third place at six per cent.
“I’m never going to back down, I’m never going to give up. Because I believe in what I’m fighting for. I believe in it and I know that people deserve better,” Singh said at a Toronto campaign stop on Tuesday.
The poll showed 48 per cent of those surveyed think the Liberals are going to win the election, compared with 31 per cent who picked the Conservatives to win.
The poll surveyed 1,599 Canadians between March 21 and March 23, including the first day of the election campaign and the two days preceding it.
Because the poll was conducted online, it can’t be assigned a margin of error.
Poilievre, campaigning in Vaughan, Ont., pledged to eliminate the GST on the cost of new homes up to $1.3 million. He said that would save homebuyers up to $65,000 and would be funded through revenue generated from a larger number of housing starts.
Carney, whose campaign tour was in Halifax on Tuesday, promised to modernize military recruitment by boosting military salaries and offering more on-base housing and services.
The NDP accused both the Liberals and Tories of supporting higher housing prices.
The Leger poll continues to track a sharp turnaround in Liberal support that began after former prime minister Justin Trudeau announced in January he would step aside once a new Liberal leader was elected, and after U.S. President Donald Trump issued tariffs and threats of annexation.
In mid-January, the Conservatives led the Liberals by more than 25 points in a Leger poll.
Since Carney won the Liberal leadership race on March 9, support for the party has increased. On the weekend of the Liberal leadership vote, the party was tied with the Conservatives at 37 per cent in a Leger poll.
One week ago, the Liberals were polling at 42 per cent support compared to 39 per cent for the Conservatives.
Sébastien Dallaire, Leger’s executive vice-president for Eastern Canada, said what used to be a small lead for the Liberals is now a “statistically significant” lead of six points.
Dallaire also pointed out that the decline of the NDP has reaffirmed that this election is a two-horse race. The NDP’s six per cent support in the current poll is down three points since one week earlier.
“This survey, that marks the start of the campaign, unfortunately for the NDP just confirms that, as of now, they are really far behind. The floor seems to have disappeared under their feet,” Dallaire said.
The latest poll suggests 39 per cent of Canadians think Carney would make the best prime minister, compared with 28 per cent for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
“It speaks to the personal appeal of Mark Carney right now,” Dallaire said of the 11-point gap. “Probably what’s going to be the defining factor during this campaign is how well Mark Carney is able to meet those expectations and to match what’s in his resume.
“This lead right now is based on what Canadians know of him but not Canadians knowing him.”
The Liberals lead in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, while the Conservatives remain the top choice in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Among men, the two parties are tied at 42 per cent each, while 46 per cent of women back the Liberals, compared with 33 per cent for the Conservatives.
The Liberals have a large lead over the Conservatives among those over the age of 55, while the Conservatives have small leads over the Liberals among voters aged 18 to 34 and 35 to 54.
Dallaire said recent polls show that the top issue for voters is dealing with Trump and U.S. tariffs. He said the “ballot box question” right now is which leader would be best at managing Trump.
“For as long as the main issue of the campaign is Donald Trump and the threat of tariffs or the threat of annexation for Canada, that helps Mark Carney,” Dallaire said, adding that parties like the Conservatives will need to try to shift the discussion to issues like affordability and inflation in order to get ahead.
“With Canadians looking south and being very worried about what’s coming from the United States, the main issues that really propelled Pierre Poilievre in the lead are not as important right now to voters,” he said.
The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.
– With files from Kyle Duggan in Halifax, Sarah Ritchie in Vaughan and David Baxter in Toronto
