A Vancouver-based pollster says some of the federal NDP’s B.C. strongholds could be in jeopardy if current trends hold through election day.
Mario Canseco, president of Research Co., said his latest survey found the two biggest parties in a statistical tie in B.C., with 41 per cent for the Liberals and 39 for the Conservatives. The NDP, he said, had sunk to eight per cent.
The same poll found U.S.-Canada relations had rocketed to the top issue for British Columbians (32 per cent), and that they gave Liberal Leader Mark Carney the edge over Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on handling the economy (56 per cent to 51 per cent respectively).
“You have that one-two punch,” Canseco said.
“What you have is the NDP base very concerned about what is going to happen with the country, really looking into a situation where Pierre Poilievre could form the government and saying to themselves, ‘We might be better off voting for the Liberals and Mark Carney this time around.’”
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If the trend holds, Canseco said NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s own riding, Burnaby South, could potentially be in play. In 2015, the last time the federal Liberals surged in B.C., Kennedy Stewart won the riding for the NDP by just under 550 votes.
Other Metro Vancouver ridings that the New Democrats typically win by large margins could also be vulnerable, Canaseco added.
“Even seats in Vancouver that used to be fairly safe such as Kingsway or East, with the numbers we are seeing right now they could be in the hands of the Liberals,” he said.
Nationally, the Research Co. poll put the liberals at 41 per cent and the Conservatives at 37 per cent, with the NDP trailing at nine per cent.
But Canseco cautioned that with more than a month left in the campaign, those numbers could easily shift. He said if a Liberal win began to look more certain, for example, it could drive a less jittery NDP base back to the party.
On Tuesday, Singh was on the campaign trail making the case that NDP MPs need to be well represented in Ottawa.
“People need us, they need New Democrats. If you believe we need someone to stop corporate greed and the companies jacking up the grocery prices, vote NDP,” Singh said in Toronto.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, was in Vaughan where he pledged a Conservative government would not scrap major new federal programs, including dental care, pharmacare or child care.
“We will protect these programs and no one who has them will lose them,” Poilievre said.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney campaigned in Halifax on Tuesday, where he kept his focus squarely on U.S. President Donald Trump, re-affirming plans to buy new submarines.
“We are going to invest so we can protect every inch of our sovereign territory,” Carney said.
None of the major party leaders has staged a campaign event so far in British Columbia, which with 43 ridings will send the third-largest delegation of MPs to Ottawa.
The federal election will take place on April 28.
The Research Co. Poll was conducted online among 1,003 adult Canadians between March 23 and March 24, statistically weighted by census figures. The margin of error—which measures sample variability—is +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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