Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a US-Canada summit hosted by the Eurasia Group, in Toronto on April 4.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Nik Nanos is the chief data scientist at Nanos Research, a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington and the official pollster for The Globe and Mail and CTV News.
Governments are very much like a carton of milk – there is a best before date after which, many times, things turn sour.
Have Justin Trudeau’s Liberals passed their expiration date? Right now, all the major indicators are trending in that direction.
That said, the resilience of the Liberals should not be underestimated. After winning a resounding majority in 2015, the Trudeau Liberals have effectively weathered a number of storms.
Mr. Trudeau survived the SNC-Lavalin controversy, which triggered the resignation of ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott. Mr. Trudeau won an election in 2019 while dealing with a picture of him wearing brown-face at an Arabian-themed gala at a school where he once taught. The Liberals survived the WE Charity ethics investigation where he was personally cleared but his finance minister, Bill Morneau, was deemed to have broken the conflict of interest rules.
More recently, Mr. Trudeau’s hardline response to the self-described “freedom convoy” garnered him both plaudits and criticism. Now, the Liberal government has found itself responding to allegations of Chinese election interference.
The Trudeau campaign team has proven its ability to make lemonade out of political lemons. Even with the political turbulence, the Liberals won re-election in 2019 and 2021 despite losing the popular support to the Conservatives both times.
However, a look at the data now suggests that the next election could be more difficult for the Liberals.
First, the Liberals are trailing the Conservatives outside of the margin of error by about five or six percentage points. The Liberals are on the defensive in major key battlegrounds. In Ontario, they trail the Conservatives. In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois is on the rise and, in British Columbia, the Liberal-Conservative-NDP-Green vote splits could be bad news for Mr. Trudeau.
For a party that was propelled into power largely on “Sunny Ways” and younger voters, the fact that the Liberals are trailing both the Conservatives and the NDP among voters under 35 years of age is bad news. Younger voters are leaving the Liberals for either the progressive NDP led by Jagmeet Singh or for the right-wing Conservatives led by Pierre Poilievre. On a positive note, Mr. Trudeau continues to have an advantage among female voters.
Canada’s preferred Prime Minister,
first ranked choice
National weekly tracking, ending March 31,
2023 (sample size = 1,000)
Pierre Poilievre (Conservative)
Justin Trudeau (Liberal)
Jagmeet Singh (NDP)
Elizabeth May (Green)
Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc)
Maxime Bernier (People's Party)
Unsure
60%
50
40
30
29%
25%
20
19%
16%
10
4%
4%
3%
0
2015
2017
2019
2021
2023
Canada’s preferred Prime Minister,
first ranked choice
National weekly tracking, ending March 31,
2023 (sample size = 1,000)
Pierre Poilievre (Conservative)
Justin Trudeau (Liberal)
Jagmeet Singh (NDP)
Elizabeth May (Green)
Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc)
Maxime Bernier (People's Party)
Unsure
60%
50
40
30
29%
25%
20
19%
16%
10
4%
4%
3%
0
2015
2017
2019
2021
2023
Canada’s preferred Prime Minister, first ranked choice
National weekly tracking, ending March 31, 2023 (sample size = 1,000)
Justin Trudeau (Liberal)
Jagmeet Singh (NDP)
Pierre Poilievre (Conservative)
Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc)
Elizabeth May (Green)
Maxime Bernier (People's Party)
Unsure
60%
50
40
30
29%
25%
20
19%
16%
10
4%
4%
3%
0
2014
2015
2016
2017
2020
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Second, the leadership advantage held by most incumbent governments is weakening. Usually, the prime minister of the day enjoys about a five-point baked-in advantage just by occupying the PM’s chair. Not so much for Mr. Trudeau. Mr. Poilievre is very competitive when it comes to who voters would prefer as prime minister – in fact, he’s the first challenger since 2015 to be competitive outside of an election cycle. Right now, 29 per cent of voters say Mr. Poilievre is their preferred choice to be prime minister; Mr. Trudeau was chosen by 25 per cent of respondents. At the same time, about four in 10 Canadians think Mr. Trudeau has the qualities of a good political leader, which is basically his lowest score since he became Liberal Leader. Mr. Poilievre has a similar score, but there has been much less variation in the trend line.
The most striking trend line is for accessible voters – those individuals who, regardless of how they vote, would consider voting for another party. The Liberals usually have a noticeable advantage over the Conservatives on accessible voters. Over the decades they have been the party of the “big tent” – occupying the centre of the political spectrum and playing off the NDP and the Conservatives. As a result, they have benefited from having the largest group of potential voters. Currently, the one in four Canadians considering the Liberals as a choice is similar to the level when they were in the political wilderness as the third party in the House of Commons.
Will things get better for the Liberals? Last month saw both a budget announcement and a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden. Foreign visits are platforms for prime ministers to build political stature. Budgets are infomercials for governments to pro-actively convey priorities. These events in short succession are opportunities for the Liberals to change the trend line which is currently moving against them. So far there has been no bump resulting from the Biden visit and it’s too early to see if there is a Liberal lift coming out of the budget. However, what is clear is that the Liberals don’t want an election any time soon. Their budget was certainly not a pre-election budget and included the social spending needed to keep the NDP on board.
If the Liberals cannot reverse the trend, it may very well be that they are dealing with a more serious challenge – that they are hitting their best before date.