Elizabeth May would be Prime Minister today - or at least right there in the thick of it with the big political leaders - if only young Canadians were allowed to vote, according to a new EKOS poll.
The Green Party leader doesn’t have one seat in the House of Commons right now and prospects for one soon are dismal. But pass a law to disallow anyone older than 25 to vote and Ms. May’s fortunes zoom.
The poll by EKOS’s Frank Graves of 5,759 (a huge sample) Canadians shows that the Green Party enjoys the support of 23.4 per cent of voters between 18 and 25 years old compared to 21 per cent for Stephen Harper’s Tories, 24.7 per cent for the Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals and only 18.8 per cent for Jack Layton’s NDP.
“The Green Party is actually within the margin of error for the leader, which is kind of a shocking result when you think about it,” Mr. Graves says. “But we know in reality they are going to get no seats and that may well explain why under 25s do not bother to vote because they know that one of their top choices actually get no seats so what is the point?”
Indeed, his numbers for the national horse race show that only 11.4 per cent of Canadians support Ms. May’s Green Party compared to 36.9 per cent for the Conservatives, 27.1 per cent for the Liberals and 15.3 per for the New Democrats.
Meanwhile, the EKOS poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, shows that the core strength for the Conservatives is “over-45 Canada.”
So they do very well with the “boomers,” Mr. Graves says, attracting the support of 40.8 per cent of Canadians, compared to 26.7 per cent for the Liberals, 14.7 per cent for the NDP and 9.2 per cent for the Greens. Seniors are also attracted to the Tories - almost 50 per cent compared to nearly 30 per cent for the Grits, 12 for the NDP and five per cent for the Green Party.
“That’s a huge advantage and it means they have a better advantage in any theoretical election … because those are the people who actually vote,” the pollster says.
(Editorial cartoon by Anthony Jenkins/The Globe and Mail)
