A year before scheduled Oct. 2015 federal election, a new EKOS poll shows that a summer of sabre-rattling against Russian aggression and the Islamic State did little to boost Stephen Harper’s fortunes among an electorate growing increasingly hazy over the incumbent Conservatives’ direction.

In fact, even promises of a surplus budget and near-done trade deals failed to reverse the slow trickle of Conservative support to below the 25 per cent line. In the latest poll, the Tories are the likeliest home for only 24.9 per cent of voters – a statistical tie for second place with the NDP, who stand at 24.4 per cent. That number represents the lowest level of stated support for the Conservatives since Harper was elected prime minister.

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“Not only would the government be in no position to aspire to a repeat its 2011 success, it may not even achieve leader of the opposition with these numbers,” said EKOS president Frank Graves. “While we find this scenario unlikely, the continued flagging of Conservative Party fortunes now renders this a real possibility.”

The Liberals remain in the lead at 38.3 per cent in voting intention, further indicating that the party’s resurgence is more than just a short-term honeymoon for leader Justin Trudeau.

“The Conservative decline is no ephemeral blip caused by some controversy or wobble,” said Graves. “It is a steady and grim decline along a straight line of descent.”

The poll was conducted between September 21 and 25, just prior to Harper’s speech to the United Nations’ General Assembly but after his annual photo-filled trip through the three northern territories and the NATO summit in Wales. Its margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Just below the voting intention figures lie a few clues as to what’s keeping the Conservatives in such a vulnerable position. According to EKOS, the Tories’ governing style isn’t appealing to Canadians as voters sound more and more hungry for a fresh approach.

In this round of polling, EKOS resurrected two questions on government vision. Around 48 per cent of respondents describe the government’s vision as a ‘careful, steady-as-she-goes approach’ and 43 per cent see a ‘bold new vision.’ That isn’t surprising given the story line Harper adopted during a campaign-style speech to party faithful at the opening of the fall Parliamentary sitting last month, in which he painted Canada as an island of stability in a dangerous world.

What EKOS believes to be more surprising is which style voters would prefer to see. Thirty-three per cent of voters sampled said they would like the steady approach, while 55 say they want a bold new vision. This shift is on top of another, more long-term trend that finds Canadians have become less able to discern what the government is about.

“Over the last 16 years, the proportion of Canadians who are unable or unwilling to categorize the government’s vision has jumped from eight per cent to more than 40 per cent,” said Graves. Still, “the Conservatives are increasingly not seen as even providing the more custodial steady-as-she-goes government that the voters saw in the past.”

Most worrying for Conservative electoral strategists is evidence that new Canadians aren’t staying put in the blue column, despite aggressive wooing through ethnic media outlets and cultural events by Employment and Social Deployment Minister Jason Kenney.

While forty-five per cent of people born in Canada say they would likely vote Liberal if an election were held tomorrow, that figure lifts to 48 per cent for second generation Canadians. Only 20 per cent of second generation Canadians said they would vote Conservative.

The NDP have strong support in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Quebec, where the party has around 36 per cent of likely voters support.

In B.C., the NDP have campaigned hard to make the Conservatives’ approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline and the possibility of more oil tankers on the province’s coastline an election issue. In Quebec, the NDP’s edge over the Liberals, who sit at 32 per cent, and the Tories, who sit at 10 per cent, is a sign that the late Jack Layton’s breakthrough in the province is holding.

While still strong among Albertans and seniors, the Conservatives’ support is relaxing in both camps, said EKOS. The controversy surrounding the temporary foreign worker program has been a hot topic in the province.



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