Politics Canada: Pre-election polls: Conservs take clear lead against the IgLibs

According to Angus Reid, the Canadian pollsters, the Conservative Party has retaken the lead and boosted its poll totals to 36%, while the Libs have slipped from 31% to 30%. New Democrats, Greens, and the separatist Bloc Québecois together make up the remaining percentages except for a 1% assigned to "Others."

The AngusReid Global Monitor supplies a background-cum-analysis text to accompany its graphic (above). Recommended: read ARGM's release by clicking the live-linked title to this blog-entry.

Perhaps telltale to the trend in the direction of Stephen Harper, Prime Minister and Leader of the governing party, the Conservs. Mr. Harper's Conservatives are a minority in the Parliament, but the embattled opposition parties had preferred not to bring down the government by uniting for that purpose, a move which woud incidentally test themselves again, so soon, as to their individual standings with the electorate. The Liberal Party of Canada is led by Prof Dr Michael Ignatieff -- thus the appellation of his style of Canadian Liberalism as prioritizing and constituting the "IgLibs."

More revealing yet perhaps is this release by Angus Reid Strategies at the same website different page "Canadians see economic improvement:

Adults in Canada are becoming more optimistic about their country’s financial standing, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 43 per cent of respondents describe the economic conditions in Canada as very good or good, up five points since early July.

Canadians renewed the House of Commons in October 2008. The Conservative party—led by Stephen Harper—received 37.6 per cent of the vote, and secured 143 seats in the 308-member lower house. Harper assembled a minority administration. The Tories also earned a minority mandate after the 2006 election, ending more than 12 years of government by the Liberal party.

Since 2007, defaults on so-called subprime mortgages—credit given to high-risk borrowers—in the United States caused volatility in domestic and global financial markets and ultimately pushed the U.S. economy into a recession. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The crisis has affected the global financial and credit systems.

In late January, Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty presented the federal budget, which predicts a $70 billion U.S. budget deficit over the next five years, and includes a $33 billion U.S. economic stimulus package, as well as tax relief aimed at the lower and middle class.

Canada’s unemployment rate stood at 8.6 per cent in June 2009, up from 8.4 per cent in May and the highest level in seven years.

On Jul. 23, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney indicated that Canada’s economic recession has ended, adding, "We believe the economy will grow this quarter. The rate of growth will pick up to the end of the year and into 2010. (...) It is early days, and it is a long road. But things are unfolding as we broadly expected them to—a little faster in terms of some of the recovery of confidence in financial conditions."

If the recession in Canada is indeed ended, then the simple observation that the Conservs saw the country-thru the USA-originated economic crisis until the Canadian govt constituted by the Conservs, re-stabilized matters on the northern side of the common border. In the face of disaster trends, the Conservs are claiming to have produced a largely recovered Canadian economy.

-- Politicarp