338Canada: Why Canada’s Conservatives Are Choking on Diesel Fumes

The debate is not only about leadership, but also about the soul of the party. Pierre Poilievre is running a high-profile campaign with ideals that could pull the Conservatives to the right.

During their first confrontation, Jean Charest lambasted Poilievre for openly supporting the protest. And the former Quebec premier was met with wild boos when he suggested the lockdowns were illegal.

Meanwhile, social-conservative candidate Leslyn Lewis accused Poilievre of not doing enough – only backing the convoy when it suited her to do so.

Ahead of Wednesday’s game, we have new data from EKOS Research Associates that sheds light on what Canadians, and Conservative voters in particular, think about this issue.

What the polls say about the protests

Here is the question posed to the field: “As you may know, the convoy protests were a protest movement made up of truckers and other protesters who, among other things, blocked several Canadian cities and state border crossings. States in February 2022. The protest was sparked by vaccination mandates for cross-border truck drivers, but later turned into a push to end all pandemic restrictions. To what extent do you support or oppose this movement?

Of all the poll respondents, a clear majority, 63%, opposed the convoy, compared to 23% who expressed support for the protests.

Breaking down the results by voting region, the data shows that a majority of voters opposed the blockades in all voting regions of the country, including 68% in Quebec, 63% in Ontario, 55% in British Columbia and even 51% in Alberta. .

So why would leadership candidates spend so much time and political capital on an issue that most Canadians oppose? The answer lies in the distribution by voting intentions.

Nearly 90% of Liberal voters and 83% of New Democrat voters opposed the convoy.

But among CCP voters? A plurality of respondents, 46%, actually supported the convoy, against only 30% who opposed it. This helps explain why last week’s debate seemed designed not so much for the general public as for internal CPC consumption.

In fact, the count of CCP supporters was much closer to that of the People’s Party of Canada, the far-right fringe party led by former Beauce MP Maxime Bernier (the PPC got 4.9% of the popular vote in the 2021 federal election, and failed to win a single seat) than the average Canadian electorate.

Additionally, the latest EKOS poll also asked respondents who they would like to be the next leader of the CPC. Once again, the results reveal major, and perhaps irreconcilable, differences between conservatives.

Among all voters, Charest and Poilievre are statistically tied at 24 and 22 percent, respectively. Patrick Brown, who skipped the debate last week but will be on stage on Wednesday, sits in third place with 11%, while Lewis was a distant fourth with 5%.

However, when we break down the results of voting intentions and isolate the data for current CPC supporters, the numbers show a commanding lead for Poilievre: 57% of those polled chose the MP for Carletoncompared to just 14% who preferred Charest — an overwhelming 43-point lead in favor of Poilievre.

It would be a safe assumption to assume that Conservative voters, who overwhelmingly favor Poilievre according to this poll (and other recent polls from various sources), would be much closer to a cross-section of CCP members, that is- that is, those who will actually get to vote for this leadership race. Therefore, one has to assume that Poilievre has a head start on the court when it comes to member support.

Moreover, if we cross-reference the convoy support and preferred CPC leader data, we observe a significant split. On one side, Charest and Brown. On the other, Poilievre and Lewis.

Among respondents who favor Jean Charest for leader of the CPC, 85% opposed the convoy, among Brown supporters, 82% opposed the convoy.

Poilievre supporters are at the other end of that spectrum. Fifty-one percent approved of the convoy and only 22 percent opposed it. In fact, Poilievre’s numbers are much more like Lewis’s than Charest’s or Brown’s and, again, are much closer to those of the PPC than the average Canadian voter.

Some of those who have expressed that the very soul of the CCP is at stake in this leadership race have been accused of hyperbole, but these numbers are just one example of the current division of the conservative movement and the magnitude of the healing that will be needed. within the base once the leadership contest is over.

However, no calls for healing or unity were posted last week. Throughout the heated exchanges during the debate, Poilievre often called Charest “liberal,” not as a political stance, but as an insult. While this tagline obviously works wonders for social media clicks and likes, it remains to be seen if this strategy will really help grow the CPC base in time for a general election.

Yet the data from this poll suggests that Poilievre’s unabashed support for the convoy, along with his brash, initially attacking style that we witnessed during the debate, appeals to ‘purple conservatives’ far more than ‘blue liberals’. . For a party that struggles not to become “liberal-lite,” Poilievre seems inclined to lead his party toward “PPC-light.”

This EKOS Research Associates Survey was conducted from April 27 to May 4, 2022 and collected data from 771 randomly selected Canadian respondents using IVR technology. The margin of error for the entire sample is ±3.5%, 19 times out of 20 (95% confidence interval). Naturally, the margin of error for subsamples is higher.