Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal at a press conference in Ottawa on Monday, October 5, 2015.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
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CAMPAIGN NOTEBOOK
By Chris Hannay (@channay)
Three-quarters of Canadians are worried about the impact the new Pacific trade deal will have on the domestic dairy and automotive industries, a new poll suggests.
The Nanos survey probed respondents' feelings about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping deal between Pacific Rim countries, as it was being completed in Atlanta.
Forty-seven per cent said they were not or somewhat not confident in the job done by the federal government in negotiating the TPP. Forty-two per cent said they confident or somewhat confident that Canadians' interests were looked after.
But on one of the most contentious questions in the deal - supply management - an overwhelming 73 per cent of respondents said it would be important or somewhat important to them if the deal had a negative impact on dairy farmers. Twenty-four per cent disagreed. The Conservative government has agreed to pay dairy farmers a combined $4.3-billion in compensation for how their industry will be affected by the TPP and European trade deals.
Canadians were equally supportive of the auto sector, with 75 per cent worrying about the impact on the automotive industry, with 23 per cent saying it wasn't important.
And on the question of which party respondents trusted most to protect Canada's interests in trade negotiations, the Conservatives and Liberals had the support of 30 per cent each, followed by the NDP at 22 per cent, the Greens at 5 per cent and the Bloc at 2 per cent. Ten per cent were unsure. The numbers largely line up with the question of who would respondents vote for in an election.
Nanos surveyed 1,000 Canadians by phone (cell and landline) from Oct. 3 to 5 for The Globe and Mail and CTV. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
DAILY TRACKING FROM NANOS RESEARCH
Nik Nanos: "Liberals and the Conservatives gripped in a close race."
> Conservatives: 31.6 per cent (down 1.2 from last week)
> NDP: 24.2 per cent (down 1.9 from last week)
> Liberals: 33.5 per cent (up 1.8 from last week)
> Green: 4.6 per cent (up 0.5 from last week)
> Bloc: 5.6 per cent (up 0.8 from last week)
Three-day rolling survey of 1,200 Canadians contacted by phone. The margin of error is 2.8 points. Click here for Nanos methodology.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS MORNING
By Chris Hannay (@channay)
> The Prime Minister's Office directly intervened in the accepting of Syrian refugees earlier this year, The Globe and Mail has learned.
> Mohamed Fahmy, now free, is starting something of a world tour, he says.*
> The loss of the Conservative candidate in Mississauga-Malton has dealt the party a blow in the GTA.
> Experts doubt there are any women who wear a niqab in the public service.
> The English-language consortium debate is officially cancelled.
TODAY'S ELECTION SIMULATION
The Conservatives drop a bit, but manage to hold on to a plurality of 164 seats -- and between them, the Liberals and NDP have 163 seats, with the Bloc taking the rest. Try your hand at our simulator and find out what could happen if an election were held today.
Overall, the Conservatives currently have a 75-per-cent chance of winning the most seats.
WHERE THE LEADERS ARE
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has a midday announcement in Vancouver. He finishes the day with a rally in Surrey, B.C.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has a morning town hall in Toronto.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is in Vaughan, Ont., this morning.
TOM AND THE TPP
The political battle over free trade has already been fought and won - and by opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Thomas Mulcair is standing on the losing side, David Parkinson writes.
WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
"Even if Mr. Trudeau achieves a minor miracle and finishes first on Oct. 19, it will hardly assure a Liberal revival. Unlike the Conservatives or New Democrats, Mr. Trudeau's Liberals have no natural base or constituency. That leaves them struggling to articulate the raison d'être and set of principles that comes naturally to parties of the right and left." – Konrad Yakabuski on the Liberal Party.
Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail): "The impossibility of discerning the aggregate effect of the TPP makes it all the more disappointing that the NDP reverted to knee-jerk opposition."
Gordon Gibson (Globe and Mail): "If you can convert something such as the niqab debate (here an unspoken proxy for Islam), into fear about a way of life, as the Conservatives have done with their escalation of a minor issue, you can have a huge impact."
Andrew Coyne (Postmedia): "Most political campaigns attempt to exploit some fear or another. It just so happens that at this moment in Canadian history the fear of choice is Muslims."
Ken MacQueen (Maclean's): "It won't feed your family, clean the environment or pare health care wait lists, still, there's no denying the issue of who is worthy to be Canadian is as existential as it gets."
LOOKAHEAD: WHAT TO EXPECT THIS WEEK
The election is in 11 days.
This newsletter is produced by Chris Hannay and Steve Proceviat.
Welcome to the new Globe Politics newsletter! Read more about the changes and let us know what you think.
* Editor's note: An earlier version of this newsletter linked to a story that said Mohamed Fahmy had turned down an invitation to attend a Conservative event during the election. The story has been updated to reflect that the Conservatives did not extend such an invitation.