Conservative candidates in Canada’s upcoming parliamentary election polled higher than expected over the weekend to show a slight lead over the liberal candidates, just weeks before the September 20 vote, CTV News reported Saturday.
Canada’s Liberal Party Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on August 15 called an early national election for September 20, two years ahead of schedule, in the hopes of getting a renewed majority in Canada’s House of Commons and secure a third term in office.
A poll of 1,200 respondents conducted by Nanos Research for the Canadian CTV News network and Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper released on August 28 shows Canada’s conservative candidates with a minor edge over their liberal counterparts among eligible voters.
“In the latest nightly tracking data, ending Friday [August 27] and released Saturday morning [August 28], ballot support for the Conservatives sits at 33.3 per cent, while the Liberals are at 30.8 per cent support,” CTV News reported.
According to the news network, the two parties began the campaign on August 15 “in a statistical dead heat, where Liberal support stood at 32.5 per cent, compared to 31.4 per cent for the Conservatives, leaving a 1.1 percentage-point difference.” This difference was well within the Nanos poll’s margin of error, which is “± 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.”
The Nanos poll likewise showed Conservative leader Erin O’Toole “with a rising approval rating, up 3.2 points to 27.2 percent since August 23,” according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), which added that, “Approval for Trudeau slid by 2.8 percent, to 29.9 percent, over the same period.”
The poll showed a decline in support for Trudeau one day after he was forced to cancel a campaign stop in Bolton, Ontario, on August 27, due to alleged “security concerns” attributed to anti-vaccine mandate protesters who gathered near his planned event space ahead of the election rally.
“Police and campaign staff held protesters back from the event area in Bolton, which is about 50 kilometres outside Toronto,” Canada’s Global News reported on August 27. “Music being played by event organizers and chanting from Liberal supporters were unable to drown out the protesters, many of whom were loudly shouting profanities aimed at Trudeau.”
“Some of the protesters were chanting about vaping rights, while others voiced anger about COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] restrictions,” according to the news site.
“As Trudeau, campaign staff and media left the event area on the party campaign bus, protesters followed, many with raised middle fingers,” Global News detailed.
Trudeau on August 13 unveiled “one of the world’s strictest vaccine policies for transportation,” the Wall Street Journal recalled on August 25, referring to vaccines against the Chinese coronavirus.
“Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government said on Aug. 13 that it would ban people from boarding any plane, train or cruise ship in Canada unless they were fully vaccinated,” the Journal reported. “The government is also compelling 300,000 federal employees to get shots, as well as employees of airlines and railways.”
“The International Air Transport Association said it was unaware of any country in the world that bans unvaccinated passengers from planes, as Mr. Trudeau is proposing,” the newspaper noted.
“Vaccinations should not be a prerequisite for restarting international air travel … alternative solutions must be offered to those who are unable to get vaccinated,” the trade group told the Journal.
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