Canada’s Conservatives Gain Weeks Before Vote, Polls Show | Elections News

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The Federal Conservative Party of Canada recently made gains over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, according to recent polls, less than two weeks after Trudeau called an early election in a bid obtain a parliamentary majority.

The Conservatives, led by Erin O’Toole, were favored by 33.3% of eligible voters, according to a follow-up poll released Saturday by Nanos Research and conducted for CTV News and The Globe and Mail newspaper.

The Liberal Party had 30.8% support, a fair difference in the poll’s margin of error, but one that nonetheless reflects a constant alienation from the Liberals in recent days.

“What was a tie at the start of this week, it looks like the Tories are now gaining the upper hand and there is definitely negative pressure on the Liberals right now,” Nik Nanos, Founder and Chief Data Scientist at Nanos Research, Recount CTV News Saturday.

Trudeau on August 15 sets off an early election two years early in the hope of securing a renewed majority in the House of Commons in the face of what analysts had described as weak and divided political opposition.

“Canadians… will go to the polls on September 20,” Trudeau told reporters in the capital, Ottawa.

But this week’s campaign was dominated by grim news from Afghanistan, including the end of Canadian evacuation operations which drew widespread criticism from observers who said the government had failed to do so. enough to bring vulnerable Afghans to safety.

Trudeau was also repelled by his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a snap federal election on August 15 [Patrick Doyle/Reuters]

O’Toole and left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh had criticized Trudeau for calling an election as Canada faces a fourth wave of the pandemic linked largely to the highly contagious Delta variant.

The country has reported 1.49 million cases and nearly 27,000 coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

However, Canada is among the best countries in the world in terms of COVID-19 vaccination, and it relaxed border restrictions for U.S. tourists earlier this month due to declines in hospitalizations, infections and deaths.

But fears of a fourth wave have prompted some Canadian provinces to announce vaccine passport systems in a bid to stem the potential spread of the virus in public places such as restaurants, bars and gyms.

Trudeau had to cancel a campaign rally in the Toronto area on Friday due to anger over vaccination and masking protests.

“The Canadians have had a difficult year,” he said later, as reported by Global News. “And those protesters had a tough year as well… I know and feel the anger, the frustration, maybe the fear.

“But we have to face this anger with compassion.”

Kyle Seeback, a Conservative Party candidate, said some of his supporters had attended the protests and were “no longer welcome” to his campaign. “My campaign has zero tolerance for obscenities or threatening behavior against any candidate,” Seeback said in a statement shared on Twitter.

The Nanos continuous poll is conducted by phone, with one-third of its 1,200 respondents contacted each night, and has a margin of error of 2.8 points.

It places the NDP in third position, supported by 21.7% of eligible voters. Nanos also showed O’Toole a rising approval rating, up 3.2 points to 27.2% since Aug 23, while Trudeau’s approval slipped 2.8%, to 29 , 9%, over the same period.

CBC News Poll Tracker, which aggregates all publicly available poll data, showed the Conservatives 32.5% support on Saturday morning, giving the party a slim lead over the Liberals’ 32.2%. The NPD was in third place with 20.2 percent.



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