The latest round of Canadians don't want an election polling. (h/t NealeNews)
Four out of five Canadians expect opposition parties to give Prime Minister Stephen Harper some breathing room over the next year to implement his Conservative agenda, a new poll shows.The Ipsos Reid survey, conducted from March 28 to 30 for CanWest News Service and Global National, found little public appetite for an election.
Only six per cent of respondents wanted the new Conservative minority government to be defeated "as soon as possible," while 81 per cent said they wanted it to survive for at least a year.
In reality it does not matter much if Canadians want an election. The more valid question is how will they respond if one is called. Canadians didn't want an election in 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006 but they got them and by and large they did not punish the party that caused it (well it could be argued that in 1997 the Chretien gov't was punished but they still won a majority).
I am of the opinion that this Parliament falls due to the Conservatives long before it would from the Opposition.
...Meantime, a majority of Canadians said the government should be defeated if it doesn't keep its promises to clean up government, establish a patient wait times guarantee for health care, and crack down on crime. At the top of that list, 53 per cent of Canadians felt the government should be defeated if it doesn't adopt a new accountability act."These are good Tory issues, and the public wants to see them deliver on them," he said.
The Top 5 priorities is smart politics but it is a limited mandate. Once these five priorities are passed then the Conservatives don't have much political capital to do anything else - at least not anything big. Besides, why would the Conservatives want to wait for the Liberals to be ready?
