In five of our last six polls, the NDP improved its standing with Canadian voters and the party now stands at 33.6 per cent — a 16-point gain in just four months.

The New Democrats now have nearly double the support they had at this point prior to the 2011 election. Support for the Conservatives and the Liberals continues to languish, with the two parties standing at 27 points and 23 points respectively.

The NDP sits just three points ahead of its 2011 election standing. The Liberals, while down, are still four points ahead of where they were four years ago.

The Conservatives are down nearly 13 points.

The NDP is strong in every region of the country and the party leads in Ontario and Quebec. Here’s an important caveat: the huge NDP lead in Ontario is new and should be treated with caution until we see it confirmed. The large NDP lead in Quebec, on the other hand, is more stable and we definitely feel the NDP is in very strong shape there. It will be interesting to see how Gilles Duceppe’s surprise return to federal politics affects the NDP’s standing and we will be returning to this issue next week.





Based on these numbers and given the provincial breakdowns, analyst Paul Barber, who blogs as tcnorris, says the NDP have pushed into minority government position.

For NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, the most troubling aspect of his party’s robust poll numbers is how they tilt towards younger voters. One-third of the party’s constituency is under the age of 35. These voters typically don’t vote in great numbers and they are a politically fluid group, with a tendency to bounce between parties. Meanwhile, the NDP trails significantly among seniors — a group that reliably votes in large numbers. A little caution in interpreting the NDP’s strength is in order.

On the other hand, the NDP vote is hugely concentrated among the university-educated, who do tend to vote; that may at least partially offset the party’s age disadvantage. Also, Canada’s young educated vote is not that far off from the national average in terms of voting levels. The source of the poor turnout among youth voters is largely the economically vulnerable, ‘precariat’ portion of that demographic.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, must be alarmed by the fact that, while they lead with seniors, they’ve lost strength with the voters who are critical to their prospects for success.

So why are educated voters flocking to the NDP? Allow me to quote from our October 28, 2014 poll:

“If recent history and public judgements are any guide, the citizenry of the near future, who will have to live with their consequences, will rue any further emphasis on security over civil liberties, personal freedoms, and economic productivity.”

There are many potential explanations for the flight of university-educated voters to the NDP. Some have speculated that the Liberal position in support of Bill C-51 is a factor. We tested this hypothesis in our most recent poll; while the measure is imperfect, it does suggest that the security file is one plausible reason for the drift. Recall that the NDP’s rise is happening alongside the Liberals’ decline, and it seems likely that the promiscuous progressive vote is seeking the best vehicle to defeat Stephen Harper’s Conservative party.

C-51 is a ballot issue; awareness of the bill is very high by the standards of this scale, and has grown somewhat over the past few months. So it has the political salience to be a game-changer.

The charts above show that support for C-51 has declined sharply and there is now clear majority opposition — a far cry from the majority support of a couple of months back (the period which coincides with the Liberals and NDP changing places in the polls). It’s also worth noting that the percentage of ‘strong’ opposition is twice as high as strong support — which suggests that the growing opposition is engaging emotionally.

These findings echo the trends noted in an essay we released in the wake of the Parliament Hill shootings, when we cautioned that while Canadians are often initially supportive of measures meant to protect civlians at home, such support quickly tapers off. Virtually every response to the terrorist threat over the past decade has been deemed a failure in hindsight. The public flatly rejects the notion that threats to our security can be resolved through further restrictions on personal freedoms — and they’ll hold their leaders to account for any decisions which further erode civil liberties.

We believe that Conservative decline is linked to the declining salience of security. The moral panic which followed the episodes in the fall has dissipated — and Bill C-51 no longer appears reasonable, particularly to ‘progressive’ voters. The Conservatives have now returned to the levels they were at in mid-October, before the Parliament Hill incident and the security wave which propelled Stephen Harper into a clear lead.

Finally, it appears that no party holds a clear advantage on having the best plan for the future of the country as a whole. The NDP is doing slightly better and the Conservatives — while not necessarily down — certainly haven’t risen.

In terms of which party has the best plan for individuals, the trendlines are a bit clearer but still not substantive. The NDP has enjoyed a steady rise in terms of the perceived merits of their plans for Canadians themselves; the party now enjoys a six-point advantage over both the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Conservative party, meanwhile, has seen a gentle erosion in public confidence in their ability to present the best plan for Canadians.

And no party has a distinct lead in terms of the clarity of their plan. While the NDP has seen a modest but sustained rise on this point, they still find themselves in statistical tie with both the Conservatives and the Liberals.

If there’s a tentative winner in the battle for the best plan, it’s the NDP; it has come out ahead in terms of offering the best ideas for individuals but can’t seem to make any real progress in terms of establishing itself as the best party to lead the country.

If there’s a loser, it’s the Conservatives — who, despite having passed a highly-publicized budget that was designed to cater to the personal needs of their constituents, have been unable to improve their standing in this area (quite the opposite, in fact). The Liberal party is neither a winner nor a loser; they’ve held their ground but, so far, have failed to make any real headway.

At this point we have no clear idea of what might happen in Ontario. What we do know is that we have a rising NDP, an incumbent in serious trouble, and a Liberal party which appears to have switched places with the NPD as the “other” alternative.

All of this has changed over the past month. It can all change again. We believe the critical election question will be which party offers the best plan that most closely captures the broadest span of public values and interests.

Frank Graves is founder and president of EKOS Polling.

Methodology:

This study was conducted using High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator. In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households.

The field dates for this survey are June 3-9, 2015. In total, a random sample of 2,491 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, region, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.