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The Harper Conservatives will enter a federal election campaign with a polling lead that puts them within striking distance of winning a majority government, according to a new survey taken on the eve of an expected vote.
The new poll for The Globe and Mail-CTV News finds Canadian voters satisfied with the direction of the country and significantly more confident in the leadership abilities of the Tories and Prime Minister Stephen Harper than they are in those of his main rival, Stéphane Dion and the Liberals.
According to the poll, conducted by the Strategic Counsel, 37 per cent of Canadians would opt to vote for the Tories were an election to be held today, compared with 29 per cent for the Liberals, 17 per cent for the NDP and 9 per cent for the Green Party.
What questions do you have about the latest numbers? What do you want to know about polling? Are you curious about how voter preferences today will impact the next election, which could be called any day now?
Tim Woolstencroft, managing partner of The Strategic Counsel
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We are pleased that Tim Woolstencroft, managing partner of the Strategic Counsel, the firm that did the poll for The Globe and CTV, joined us online to answer your questions.
Questions and answers appear at the bottom of this page.
As one of the founding partners of The Strategic Counsel, Mr. Woolstencroft's research experience spans both public and private sectors.
His expertise regularly involves him in a broad spectrum of research projects, particularly in the financial services, government, and telecommunications sectors.
Mr. Woolstencroft has undertaken long-term comprehensive brand positioning and tracking for clients such as Bank of Montreal, CN North America, Microsoft and the Government of Canada.
He has been in the market research field for close to 14 years.
After earning an MBA from the Ivey Business School at University of Western Ontario, he joined Decima Research as vice-president in the late 1980s, moving to Toronto from Ottawa, where he had been executive assistant to the federal Minister of External Relations.
Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.
Brodie Fenlon, globeandmail.com: Thank you for joining us Mr. Woolstencroft. There has been so much interest in today's discussion that I'm going to turn it over right away to our readers. We'll try to get to as many questions as we can.
Dave Roberts from GTA Canada writes: Hello Mr. Woolstencroft. Could you comment on how likely a voter is to actually go to the polls and vote relative to each party? For instance, is someone who identifies himself as an NDP voter more likely to actually vote than someone who identifies as a Liberal voter etc.?
Tim Woolstencroft: Dave, we don't have the specific answer to your question. But we do know that younger people are less likely to actually vote than older people. The Green/NDP/Liberal parties tend to be more reliant on the voter support of younger people, while the Conservatives are more dependent on older voters.
Greg King from Ottawa writes: I'm always keenly interested in how language is used in politics and especially opinion polls. How a question is phrased is extremely important to the answers that you will receive and the results of a poll. Can you let us know the exact phrasing of the questions that were posed to individuals in this poll?
Tim Woolstencroft: Greg: you are absolutely right. This is a critical consideration. We spend a tremendous amount of time in developing questions that are phrased in a neutral manner. We also use questions that we have developed and tested over many years. We suggest that you visit our website where you will see the specific questions that we used in this latest poll.
John Northey from Georgetown writes: Have you studied where the Green Party vote is coming from? As a former PC/Reform voter I know I have been turned off by the current Conservative party (broken promises cause that) and since the NDP doesn't fit my views and I have no trust in the Liberals I have shifted to the Greens as have many other former PC voters that I know. This is the opposite of what I hear via the media so I was curious if polls matched my personal experience.
