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Ottawa – Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre recently fired a gun on the top of the poll by promising to make everyday Canadians more affordable. But two recent surveys show that, as the campaign began, he lost his edge on all the important pocket book issues.
Shortly before Sunday’s election call, a Leger/National Poll poll showed Poilievre lagging behind liberal leader Mark Carney, a question of who did a better job of making everyday Canadians more affordable.
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Andrew Enns, executive vice president of Leger, told the National Post that Carney’s decision to lower the consumer carbon tax to zero helped him close the gap.
“The Liberals may remove the carbon tax from Carney as his first-order business,” Ens said.
“I gathered Canadians to see a considerable drop in gasoline prices on the pump on Tuesday (April 1), and Mr. Carney will receive some honors for this situation under his watch.”
Poilievre has only two leading Carney of eight key issues, and voters say he will do the best in strengthening Canada’s armed forces and managing the federal budget, Leger polls show.
(This time, the company’s monthly opinion poll was conducted between March 14 and 16, using a sample of 1,59999999 adults recruited from a group created by Leger. The online poll is not an appropriate representative sample and therefore does not carry the wrong error. However, the poll provides an estimated margin for the estimated profit margin, for the purpose of comparison, which is 2.45% for 2.45%, respectively, and 20 times.
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Leger found inflation was the first problem in a campaign of one in five Canadians, falling behind the second in U.S. aggression and tariffs, the biggest issue in the election, Leger found in a separate federal election report released Monday.
Leger/National Post polls show Carney has a 13-point lead in terms of tariffs and other threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Enns believes Carney has done an effective job of bringing the first two issues of the campaign together.
“I think the fact that[Carney]’s position on (his) fighting trade aggression and tariffs is related to trying to protect consumers from some of the effects of rising prices has been paid off,” Ens said.
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A different poll released by Abacus Data on Friday showed that Carney even caused his housing affordability on Poilievre.
The same 41% of respondents said they think Carney and Poilievre would “absolutely” or “possibly” take action to make housing more affordable if elected.
From March 17 to 20, 1,500 qualified voters were surveyed by recruiting online respondents from groups related to their partners. Abacus commissioned and paid for the polls, like the Leger survey, there was no real room for error. However, according to Abacus’s website, the margin is calculated by adding or subtracting 2.5 percentage points.
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Carney said he would cancel GST from all homes for sale purchased by first-time home buyers for $1 million or less. Poilievre objected to all new buildings that promised to exempt GST, at a price of less than $1.3 million.
Poilievre’s often repeated promises to “build homes” for a generation of young Canadians, due to undersupply and low-priced prices locked out of the housing market, anchoring his stadium to millennials and Gen Z voters.
Even though Carney has closed the housing gap, Poilievre still maintains a foothold with younger voters, Ens said.
“Poilievre is still tracking well among people under 40 … there are still signs that those aspiring new homeowners are seeing something more attractive from conservative platforms,” Ens said.
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The Leger survey commissioned by Canadian media led Carney among players aged 35 to 54 and two points ahead of players aged 18 to 34.
Meanwhile, Carney took an 18-point lead among Canadians 55 and older.
The lack of pickups and drop-offs for Poilievre’s affordability announcements, including cutting workers’ tax breaks and tax cuts of 2.25% of workers, reportedly creating a crack in the conservative circle.
Kory Teneycke, manager of the Ontario progressive conservative victory last month, publicly called for the “voting problem” of Poilievre’s “voting problem” in multiple public performances this week, warning that he would lose if he didn’t have it.
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Michelle Rempel Garner, who works with Teneycke in the Harper administration, told the National Post that he could call her if he really wanted to help the conservative movement.
Rempel Garner said: “(Kory) has my cell phone number and I will be with him and his friends in any conservative movement in the Greater Toronto area and welcome them to knock on the door.”
Rempel Garner said the call for Poilievre to change courses is inconsistent with the sound she heard on the door on a ride in northern Calgary.
“The people I talk to on the ride are grateful and I was able to tell them in an accurate and quantitative way that our policies will make their lives more affordable,” Rempel Garner said.
Rempel Garner said she hopes that the liberals in the polls will evaporate when voters have the opportunity to sit down to a more liberal and conservative platform.
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“We’re in the early stages of the campaign and you can see us every day and it’s what we’re doing, it’s the plan, it’s the whole package,” Rempel Garner said.
Poilievre said don’t expect a hub in the news of his stay in a campaign in Winnipeg on Saturday.
“Obviously, we will retaliate against unfair U.S. tariffs and work to eliminate them, but all we do need to do is reverse the weaknesses created by the lost decade of freedom.”
State Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com
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