By Staff
April 14th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Race tightens in British Columbia as CPC support grows, Liberals’ strength in Ontario and Quebec holds
As the runway shortens for all parties to make gains and lock in votes in this federal election campaign, new data from the Angus Reid Institute shows the race tightening between the incumbent Liberals and the challenger Conservatives.
Where the intentions are at this point. Debate on Thursday will be the turning point – if there is one.
For the CPC, these data represent the first glimmer of hope in several weeks, as their support ticks up ever so slightly, while Liberal support remains statistically unchanged, though down a point to 45 per cent.
However, the reasons driving this movement reveals more about the state of the campaign than topline vote intent data. The shift may be attributed to three key things.
It is always about the economy – pocket books come before the heart
First, the issues: concern over cost of living and inflation has been climbing since the start of the campaign, up to 56 per cent now, while worries about tariff threats and managing the Trump-Canada relationship has declined, off 12 points in the last month.
This latter issue especially has represented a stronghold of Liberal support in recent weeks. Its diminishment in the minds of Canadians opens space for voters to change their minds.
Secondly, the personal momentum of Prime Minister and Liberal leader Mark Carney – the difference between improving and worsening opinions among Canadians – has slowed to a neutral pace. Canadians are as likely to say their opinion of him has improved (33%) as worsened (31%) over the past week. In recent weeks, Carney had been generating more positive impressions. However, he still holds an advantage over CPC leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh on this metric, both of whom have negative momentum (-20, -27 respectively).
And third, a noticeable shift among some men back to the CPC. If the first weeks of the campaign were notable for the number of men willing to give the Liberals another look post-Trudeau departure, the second half may well be defined by the Conservatives’ attempts – which appear to be bearing fruit – to communicate directly to and woo back male voters. The CPC have regained the lead over the Liberals among men older than 54 (+7), while still leading among men aged 35 to 54 (+9).
Intentions by age and gender.
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Our system of government is based on the constitutional principle of the supremacy of Parliament. I believe that this is how it should be because we elect our members of Parliament to enact policies and laws to represent our values and beliefs; if we disagree, we are free to vote them out of office. They are ultimately accountable to the electorate. But increasingly in Canada, and particularly in the past 10 years, the Supreme Court of Canada has become politicized; Trudeau appointed six of the nine judges for reasons of left-leaning social policy. None that I have researched is a particularly notable or outstanding jurist. So when this court rules against laws enacted in Parliament, they are usurping the authority of Parliament and what is particularly egregious is that these judges are NOT accountable to the people of Canada. To redress this imbalance we have in the Charter, the notwithstanding clause–a clause that was democratically agreed to and a clause that has constitutional validity. Poilievre has signaled his willingness to use this withstanding clause in matters of criminal justice reform. And he should! The pendulum has swung too far in protecting the rights of criminal offenders in Canada–it has swung so far that the rights of all Canadians under Section 7 of the Charter to life and security of the person have been seriously infringed. The Supreme Court and the Liberal government have seriously ignored these rights to the detriment of all Canadians.
What we need is humanity and voting for decent human beings who care about other people rather than first and only their own selves and their personal bank balances. We need to turn the tide fast and support people who have empathy, not hatred running through their veins, people who want to be inclusive, not divisive, people who don’t want to go back to 1950 – or 1932 Germany.
When Trump and Musk and Matt Goetz endorse you, you’re on the wrong side. Same goes for Danielle Smith and Harper in fact …. BTW Pierre: using the notwithstanding clause for anything is undemocratic as is not showing up for your own riding’s debate and why aren’t you getting a security clearance? What was that you said about biological clocks??? Oh and your private member’s bill to ban all vaccine mandates and future ones. Yay let’s spread disease! Go measles! But of course we know who you’re catering to with this crap. I don’t endorse the nastiness – the F@$# signs and the hateful snide remarks. Canada isn’t broken – Canada is beautiful and a hell of a lot better than any dictatorship – like today’s USA.
I can’t comprehend what is happening in the US and what many Canadians are fine to ignore and therefore accept – and in particularly disgusting cases, even endorse.