VANCOUVER – As the pandemic precludes shaking hands and kissing babies in an election year, Premier Doug Ford turned to digging out vehicles and giving constituents rides home last week amid a snowstorm that buried southern Ontario.
The political imperative to re-ingratiate himself with Ontarians is apparent based on new polling data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute showing his Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario slightly trailing the NDP.
New Democrats led by Andrea Horwath have taken a three-point lead in vote intention in Ontario ahead of an expected provincial election this June (36% NDP versus 33% PC).
In Ontario, a majority (54%) of women aged 18 to 34 say they will vote for the NDP. Conversely, a majority of men over the age of 54 (53%) say they will vote PC.
Quebec in election year
Voters in Canada’s second-most populous province are also expected to head to the polls this year, but the situation looks far more comfortable for incumbent François Legault. Almost two-in-five (37%) Quebecers say they intend to vote for his Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party, a 17-point lead over his closest challenger, the Quebec Liberal Party.
Support for the CAQ remains consistent with the vote share they received in the 2018 election, a total that was enough for them to form a majority government.
Legault and the CAQ have held steady in vote intention as his government has taken a hardline stance on the COVID-19 pandemic, putting the province in a curfew for over two weeks and proposing to tax the unvaccinated. These data were collected in the early days of speculation that a tax would be announced.
