oh well...
Stephen Harper's Conservatives have vaulted to a huge lead in voter support thanks, largely, to the distribution of $3-billion worth of benefit cheques to parents earlier this week, a new poll says.
Mainstreet Research, in a survey provided exclusively to Postmedia Network, has Stephen Harper's party enjoying almost the same level of support this week that it got in the general election of 2011 when the party won its first-ever majority government.
Mainstreet asked more than 5,000 Canadians who they'd vote for if an election where held now, and 38% of decided voters picked the Tories. In the 2011 general election, 39% actually voted Conservative.
Thomas Mulcair's NDP were in second at 27% and Justin Trudeau's Liberals were third at 25%.
No survey published by a major pollster since Trudeau got elected leader in the spring of 2013 has had the Conservatives above 35%. Of the nine polls published by other pollsters in the last month, the Conservatives were between 27% and 32%.
"These are remarkably strong numbers. It is indeed Christmas in July for Conservatives," said Quito Maggi, Mainstreet's president.
Mainstreet surveyed 5,147 Canadians using an interactive voice response telephone poll that hits both landline and cell subscribers. A poll of this size -- the largest "horserace" sample of any poll done by anyone so far this year -- has a margin of error of 1.37% 19 times out of 20.
The poll was done Monday and Tuesday this week.
What was going on politically as Mainstreet was contacting voters?
The Conservatives were loudly trumpeting that seven months worth of cheques for their enriched and enhanced universal child care benefit were arriving in millions of Canadian households with children.
Parents of kids aged 5 and under had been getting $100 a month for each child. But that jumped to $160 a month as of Jan 1.
Meanwhile, every kid aged 6 to 17 was also worth $60 a month.
Seven months worth of all those new payments started arriving via direct deposit Sunday night. Paper cheques arrived Monday and Tuesday.
Maggi also said federal Conservatives are up in Ontario because of dislike of provincial Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne's sex-ed curriculum changes.
And many "blue Liberals," Maggi said, have seen Mulcair's rise in the polls and, because they are more worried about an NDP win than a Liberal loss, are ready to vote for Harper.
Tories take huge lead in latest poll | Canada | News | Toronto Sun
Canadians begin to see what a disaster it would be with socialists in power not only provincially but federally too.
Stephen Harper's Conservatives have vaulted to a huge lead in voter support thanks, largely, to the distribution of $3-billion worth of benefit cheques to parents earlier this week, a new poll says.
Mainstreet Research, in a survey provided exclusively to Postmedia Network, has Stephen Harper's party enjoying almost the same level of support this week that it got in the general election of 2011 when the party won its first-ever majority government.
Mainstreet asked more than 5,000 Canadians who they'd vote for if an election where held now, and 38% of decided voters picked the Tories. In the 2011 general election, 39% actually voted Conservative.
Thomas Mulcair's NDP were in second at 27% and Justin Trudeau's Liberals were third at 25%.
No survey published by a major pollster since Trudeau got elected leader in the spring of 2013 has had the Conservatives above 35%. Of the nine polls published by other pollsters in the last month, the Conservatives were between 27% and 32%.
"These are remarkably strong numbers. It is indeed Christmas in July for Conservatives," said Quito Maggi, Mainstreet's president.
Mainstreet surveyed 5,147 Canadians using an interactive voice response telephone poll that hits both landline and cell subscribers. A poll of this size -- the largest "horserace" sample of any poll done by anyone so far this year -- has a margin of error of 1.37% 19 times out of 20.
The poll was done Monday and Tuesday this week.
What was going on politically as Mainstreet was contacting voters?
The Conservatives were loudly trumpeting that seven months worth of cheques for their enriched and enhanced universal child care benefit were arriving in millions of Canadian households with children.
Parents of kids aged 5 and under had been getting $100 a month for each child. But that jumped to $160 a month as of Jan 1.
Meanwhile, every kid aged 6 to 17 was also worth $60 a month.
Seven months worth of all those new payments started arriving via direct deposit Sunday night. Paper cheques arrived Monday and Tuesday.
Maggi also said federal Conservatives are up in Ontario because of dislike of provincial Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne's sex-ed curriculum changes.
And many "blue Liberals," Maggi said, have seen Mulcair's rise in the polls and, because they are more worried about an NDP win than a Liberal loss, are ready to vote for Harper.
Tories take huge lead in latest poll | Canada | News | Toronto Sun
Canadians begin to see what a disaster it would be with socialists in power not only provincially but federally too.
