In a joint poll with the Toronto Star, angus Reid determined that a majority – 57% – of the Canadian population oppose a federal election before year’s end. Conversely, 32% of respondents support such a move. Unlike this circumstance last year, in which the governing Conservatives brought on the election, this time it is Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff broadly threatening such a move.

Now, as has been the case for most of the summer, the Liberals and Conservatives face off in a dead heat, each with 32.5% of voters intending to vote for their party in a hypothetical election. What’s different now is the battleground of Ontario, where Liberals enjoy 40% support against the Conservatives’ 33%. It is important to remember that because the makeup of the Canadian Parliament is determined by riding seats and not the national proportion of support, the fact that the Liberals and Conservatives are tied federally might be misleading.

PollingReport.ca will be keeping a very close eye on the polls as they come in, especially with an election now looming.

A new poll from Angus Reid sheds some more light on issues we’ve looked at throughout the summer. These issues grow in relevance as we approach a hypothetical election.

When asked overall who people would most prefer to have as Prime Minister of Canada, “Stephen Harper” came out on top with 27% of respondants preferring him, followed closely by “None of them” with 21%, “Not sure” with 18%, and “Michael Ignatieff” with 17%.

The poll went on to evaluate leaders with regards to voting issues: economy, environment, health care, foreign affairs, and crime. Amongst the party leaders, Stephen Harper came out on top in every category except for environment, where Jack Layton beat him by seven points. Ignatieff showed strongly on foreign affairs, coming in only two points behind Harper; this may be because of his experiences living in the US and UK.

It is interesting to note how complimentary the primary opposition leaders, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton, are. Ignatieff comes in strong on economy (21%) and foreign affairs (27%) while Layton is best on the environment (25%) and health care (21%). This seems to show that people think Ignatieff is a more competent administrator but out of touch with the lifestyle and sustainability issues Layton is strong on. What’s even more interesting is that this apparently even split in perception leads to a 2-1 advantage for the Liberals in voter preference.

Unfortunately for everybody, “Not sure” took a higher score on these issues than any leader did. Not sure beats Harper on the economy 34-31, foreign affairs 32-29, health care 34-23, and ties him on crime with 35% each. Not sure also beats Layton on environment 38-25.

Finally, there was an analysis of leaders with respect to descriptors so as to determine shifts from the same poll a month ago. Stephen Harper is significantly more boring and uncaring (+5 each). He is also a fair bit weaker (+3) and less inefficient (-3). Ignatieff is more boring (+4) and inefficient (+3), and significantly less arrogant (-5), honest, and dishonest (-4 each).

This poll may be viewed in its entirety here.

Angus Reid recently polled Americans, Brits, and Canadians about the effects that immigration (both legal and illegal) is having on their respective countries.

In general, Canadians are about twice as welcoming to legal newcomers than the others. 37% of Canadians think immigration has a positive effect on the country, as opposed to 18% of Americans and 16% of Brits. On the flip side, Canadians are evenly split as to whether they think illegal immigrants take jobs away from Canadian citizens (43%), or rather perform jobs citizens are unwilling to do (40%). This is in stark contrast to the United States and United Kingdom where those numbers look more like 58% and 32%, respectively.

In terms of dealing witht he illegal immigrant population, Canadians are again evenly divided. 43% are somewhat lenient, half of whom think illegal immigrants should have a path to citizenship, and the other half ruling out citizenship but thinking some kind of working visa arrangement is reasonable. 46% believe they should be forced out of their jobs and deported.

Our weekly Ekos federal vote intention poll is in as well. It’s mostly the same as always, although the NDP have gained some momentum. Curiously, polling on Tuesday (and Tuesday alone) showed NDP support equal to support for the Liberals. This is most likely an outlier and thus not credible, but it’s odd to say the least. It’s worht noting that their party convention was held in Halifax this past weekend, which might have had the effect of raising their visibility and support. We’ll have to wait until next week to see if anything comes of it.

Angus Reid recently came out with a couple fascinating polls. These aren’t tracking polls with partisan support numbers, but ather more qualitative polls about how Canadians think and feel about the parties vying for seats in Parliament.

An entire poll was devoted to the possible rebranding of the New Democratic Party to the Democratic Party (dropping the ‘new’). This was a resolution that was to be up for discussion at the NDP convention in Halifax this past weekend. The resolution never actually made it to the floor, which might be unfortunate for the party since the new name received widespread support. 45% of Canadians as a whole supported the idea of changing the name, and an astounding 59% of New Democrat supporters liked the notion as well.

In another poll similar to a recent one regarding the Grit and Tory leadership, adjectives describing and identifying the four major federal parties were measured, both among a party’s base and among the voting population as a whole. The results aren’t encouraging for any party in particular.

The governing Conservatives are seen by the nation as arrogant (55%), secretive (48%), out of touch (43%), uncaring (37%) and dishonest (36%). Half of their supporters find them strong, intelligent, and in touch.

The opposing Liberals are still reeling from the sponsorship scandal. The nation thinks they are arrogant (43%), inefficient (42%), out of touch (41%), and dishonest (38%). More than half of their supporters find them intelligent, with about a third thinking they are strong, in touch, and open.

The New Democrats generally suffer from a lack of national perception of any kind; they might want to work on visibility. Among everybody, their highest-scoring traits were out of touch (41%), inefficient (39%), weak (37%), and foolish (32%). They have some good news though: among the parties with seats in government, they scored the highest positive trait among all respondents; 30% of Canadians think the New Democrats are compassionate. They are viewed by about half of their base as compassionate, in touch, intelligent, and honest.

Although they lack a federal seat, respondents were surveyed about the Green Party as well. Their lack of a seat is apparent in the response: half of all Canadians think the Green Party is weak. 38% find them inefficient and out of touch, and 35% said the Greens are down to earth. It is worth noting, however, that the Greens have the most energetic base by far. Among their supporters the Greens are down to earth (73%), open (65%), intelligent (64%), compassionate (61%) and honest (59%).

And the bad news for everybody? Not a single party scored more than single digits for “exciting.”

Another week, another poll.

Ekos’s most recent poll shows the same general apathy towards the parties and very little movement in either direction. This has become the norm during this summer season. The Conservatives (32.7) have pulled ahead of the Liberals (31.0), but statistically they still remain in the same tie they have been in for months. The NDP (16.5) seem to be slightly up from previous Ekos polls. However, as Frank Graves states, “If our vote intention tracking chart was a national cardiogram, it might be time to pull the plug.”

In the leadership ratings the reasons for this apathy become far more apparent. The only leader with a net positive (+1%) approval rating is Jack Layton, while both Ignatieff (-9%) and Harper (-11%) lie in the negatives. This could explain the lack of any momentum for the LPC or the CPC. This must be especially disappointing for the Liberals as Ignatieff sat at a net positive of +20% in January. According to Ekos, the reason for this plummet is that his disapproval rating had doubled in that six month period of time. Finally, with an approval rating of 29%, he trails both Layton (34%) and Harper (36%). It is also important to note that these are particularly high approval ratings for Layton. However, in comparison to the approval ratings of Barack Obama (73% approve, 11% disapprove), none of the party leaders come even close.

Finally, an interesting question was brought up as to whether or not Canadians would prefer a two-party system to have a higher level of stability. A solid majority of Canadians say that they do not want a two-party system (56% to 44%). The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois were the most in support of this, with the 48% of Conservatives supporting at two-party system and a surprising 50% of the Bloc Québécois supporting it. The strongest party for no is, not surprisingly, the Greens with 66%. The Liberals (60%) are tied with the NDP (59%) in their lack of support of a two-party system.