Nanos polling shows Canadians want to see quick action from Carney government

Nanos Research Chief Data Scientist Nik Nanos speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about recent polling on support for the federal parties.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: Let’s talk about where your survey results are concerned. There are many we’re hoping to touch on, but maybe start with expectations of the Carney government delivering. How quickly do Canadians expect results?

Nik Nanos: Canadians are expecting results, according to the survey, quite soon. They expect results this year, as in the next six months, and that speaks to the appetite for action.

Think of it this way, the Liberals were in power for 10 years and they talked a lot, they didn’t accomplish as much as they probably hoped for, or for some Canadians, not enough. So not a lot of runway for Mark Carney in terms of expectations.

MH: Can you boil that down to the degree of patience Canadians have with this government and what we would probably consider a honeymoon period?

NN: We also asked about whether Canadians want the house to continue sitting, whether they want a federal budget in short order and you know what’s interesting? There’s a significant proportion of Canadians that want the house to continue to work, and they actually want to see a budget.

For the Carney Liberals, there’s a certain sense of urgency that Canadians have. They want to see the government at work. They want to see a budget. They want to see Parliament convened in order to deal with these big issues, and they actually want to see concrete results by the fall, or at the very latest, by the end of the year.

So I think there’s a lot of pressure and expectations. That said, they’ve got a little bit of leeway but tick tock, six months is going to go by pretty fast.

MH: Can you break this down by region? A lot of expectations out here in Alberta around the Carney government green lighting at least one pipeline in in the wake of last week’s First Ministers Meeting.

NN: This is probably going to be the toughest part for the Carney government, delivering on a lot of the talk about energy. We know from our polling that about three out of every four Canadians are supportive, or somewhat supportive, of a pipeline from Alberta straight through to the east coast. That includes oil and liquefied natural gas.

Those expectations are the highest in the prairies and I think the fact of the matter is if the Carney government can’t deliver on a pipeline, that’s going to be the first big problem that it’ll have. I think if he can’t deliver on the pipeline, it’s going to be hard to keep a lid on people’s expectations because he’s really put a lot of his personal capital in saying that he’s willing to put his shoulders to the wheel when it comes to these projects that have a national interest.

MH: Coming out of the federal election it was close between the Liberals and Conservatives. How close are these two front running parties now?

NN: In the election, in terms of ballot support, it was a statistical dead heat between the Liberals and the Conservatives. They were within the margin of error. Fast forward to the survey that we’ve just completed and released just in the last day or so, the Liberals have gone from being statistically tied with the Conservatives within the margin of error to now having a significant advantage.

We have the Liberals at 43, Conservatives 33, they’re 10 points back. NDP at 12, Bloc at seven, Greens at three. We’ve been seeing in the last number of weeks, not necessarily Liberal support going up, it’s Conservative support going down and drifting to all the other parties.

MH: Where the leaders are concerned how does Pierre Poilievre fare at this point, having lost his seat?

NN: Ugly. It’s outright ugly when you look at his numbers. During the election campaign, when we asked Canadians who they thought they would prefer as prime minister, Pierre Poilievre was as high as 41 per cent but right now, as of last weekend, he’s at 26 per cent.

He is 25 points back of Mark Carney. Mark Carney is at 51 as the preferred prime minister, Pierre Poilievre at 26. So what we’re seeing is a significant drop in the proportion of Canadians that would prefer Pierre Poilievre as prime minister.

It speaks to the difficult position he’s in. He had a record-breaking election in terms of popular support, it was excellent. From a long-term perspective, he lost a seat. Now he’s searching to get a seat and right now his leadership numbers are sliding.

MH: What bearing does that lower level of support have on his bid to return to parliament with a by-election anticipated out here in Alberta in the riding of Battle River Crowfoot?

NN: It’s hard to envision the Conservatives losing Battle River Crowfoot. That said, the current individual that holds that seat won it with about 82 per cent support. People will look to see whether Pierre Poilievre can have a level that’s as high as has happened in the election, but I don’t think the question is whether he’ll win the by-election or not.

I think the expectation is that he will comfortably win the by-election, by hook or by crook. I think the big question is can he defeat Mark Carney?

Mark Carney is still in a minority government, can Pierre Poilievre be competitive? Can he recover from losing his riding, and from not being in the house? It’s a significant disadvantage for him not to be in the house because, love or hate the guy, Pierre Poilievre is a good parliamentarian when it comes to asking questions and having an impact.