Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland pose for a photo before the tabling of the federal budget on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. PHOTO BY JUSTIN TANG /The Canadian Press
Very few people like the budget and the Liberals’ hope for increased voter support has fizzled.
By Brian Lilley
Originally published in the Toronto Sun
If the Trudeau government’s latest budget was an attempt to boost Liberal fortunes, then it was a bust.
A big, expensive, divisive bust that will ruin our economy for years to come while getting Justin Trudeau none of the support he had hoped for.
Those are the findings of the latest poll from Ipsos.
OK, Ipsos found most people didn’t like the budget or didn’t care and that Trudeau isn’t getting a boost in support, the rest is my commentary.
Just 10% of respondents who knew anything about the budget said it would help them personally compared to 37% who felt the budget would hurt them and 53% who were neutral. Asked if the budget would make them more or less likely to vote Liberal, 8% said more likely, 34% said less likely and 58% said there was no change.
Ipsos, in a poll for Global News, asked Canadians to rate the budget with two thumbs up, two thumbs down or a shrug of the shoulders and the results aren’t good for the Trudeau Liberals. Just 17% gave the budget two thumbs up, 40% gave it two thumbs down and 43% shrugged their shoulders.
Even among the younger voters this budget was meant to appeal to, Gen Z and Millennials, the reaction was far more negative than positive.
This shows up in party support numbers as well — Ipsos is now showing a 19-point lead for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives over Trudeau’s Liberals. The Conservatives would take 43% of the vote nationally if an election were held today, the Liberals 24% and the NDP 19%.
Trudeau has been frantically courting Gen Z and Millennials, his budget mentioning each of them multiple times, but it isn’t working.
Among Gen Z, 38% would vote Conservative, 28% would vote for the NDP and the Liberals are in third at 27%. Millennial voters are also not impressed with Trudeau with 40% saying they would vote Conservative, 24% Liberal and 23% NDP.
Regionally, Poilievre’s Conservatives hold a significant lead in every part of the country except Quebec, where they are tied for second with the Liberals.
In Ontario, where the Liberals hold 75 seats, the Conservatives hold an 11-point lead, 41% to 30% support. The Liberals won all those Ontario seats taking just 39% of the vote in the last election to the Conservatives at 35%, meaning, outside of Toronto, there wouldn’t be very many Liberals in Ontario if these numbers hold.
The Ipsos numbers are hardly outliers in showing sustained support for the Conservatives and the lack of a bounce for the budget. Last week, Abacus Data released a poll showing very similar numbers for party support. It was released before the budget, but after all the good-news spending announcements had been made.
Among major polling firms, the smallest gap between the Liberals and Conservatives over the past six months was an Ipsos poll released in January showing just a nine-point lead. Beyond that, for months, the Conservatives have consistently shown a double-digit lead over the Liberals.
This budget was supposed to be Trudeau’s attempt to claw his way back to relevancy. The Liberal Party, according to the Globe and Mail, has set a goal of narrowing the gap with the Conservatives to just 5 points by July but results like this won’t help.
Trudeau increased program spending by more than $30 billion compared to last year. He’s promising to take care of every aspect of your life using tax dollars and it isn’t resonating with voters.
Maybe, just maybe, the problem isn’t a lack of spending or government announcements. Maybe the problem is Justin Trudeau.
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