The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
With Canada's divided electorate set to head to the polls in just one week, a new survey suggests the Conservatives maintain a slight lead but "the federal election landscape remains essentially static." An Ipsos-Reid poll of decided voters, conducted last week, put support for Stephen Harper's party at 32 per cent, three points ahead of Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals. The New Democratic Party held 16 per cent support, followed by the Bloc Quebecois at 12 per cent and the Green Party at seven per cent. The poll puts the Conservatives in the lead in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which were grouped together for survey purposes, with 36 per cent support. The nationwide poll asked 1,000 respondents: Thinking of how you feel right now, if a federal election were held tomorrow, which of the following parties' candidates would you, yourself, be most likely to support? If the results hold true, Ipsos-Reid projects the breakdown of Parliament would be: Conservatives: 125 to 129 seats Liberals: 92 to 96 seats Bloc Quebecois: 63 to 67 seats NDP: 20 to 24 seats It's been said that nothing in politics is for sure, and the poll reflects that sentiment. Just over one-fifth of respondents, 21 per cent, said they are "likely" to change their minds before election day. The poll puts support for the governing Liberals at 29 per cent, down two points since June 13, the day before the televised leader debates began. Thirty-one per cent of respondents said they believed that Harper "won" the debates, followed by Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe at 20 per cent, Prime Minister Martin at 16 per cent, and NDP Leader Jack Layton at eight per cent. But the poll also showed that Prime Minister Martin is considered the best candidate for the job by 38 per cent of respondents, well ahead of Harper's 28 per cent, Layton's 14 per cent, and Duceppe's 19 per cent in Quebec, the only province in which his party exists. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1,000 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. The results are considered accurate to within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. In the Churchill Riding, which includes Flin Flon, The Pas, and Thompson, the MP race is between incumbent Bev Desjarlais of the NDP, Bill Archer of the Conservatives, Chief Ron Evans of the Liberals, and David Nickarz of the Green Party.
