Conservative Party Gaining Support in Quebec: Poll

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre delivers a speech at the Canada Strong & Free Network conference in Ottawa on March 23, 2023. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

A recent poll indicates Conservative Party support is ranked closely behind the Liberals and Bloc Québécois in Quebec—a voter base where the Tories have traditionally lacked strong support.

According to the poll by Pallas Data, the Liberals have the support of 28 percent of voters, the Conservatives have 25 percent, and the Bloc leads by a slim margin with 29 percent.

“We have four polls in the last six weeks that have the Conservatives above the 20 percent mark in Quebec, so this seems to be more than just fluctuation. It seems to be a modest but real trend upward for the Conservatives,” analyst Philippe J. Fournier told CTV News in an Aug. 21 report.

The Pallas Data poll was commissioned by 338Canada.com, a company founded by Mr. Fournier.

The poll conducted between Aug. 16 and 17 among 1,021 Canadians found the Conservatives leading across all provinces with 39 percent of the vote overall compared to the governing Liberals’ 30 percent approval.

Founder and CEO of Pallas Data, Dr. Joseph Angolano said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had an “excellent summer” and would be on the cusp of a majority government if an election were held today.

“Poilievre would only need to gain slightly in Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic to secure a majority,” he said in an Aug. 21 release announcing the poll results.

The latest poll results are in line with the findings of a Leger poll completed between July 7 and July 10, which found the Conservatives were sitting at 25 percent in Quebec compared with 28 percent for the Liberals and 31 percent for the Bloc.

During the 2015 election, which saw Justin Trudeau become prime minister with a majority government, the Liberals won Quebec with 35.7 percent of the vote compared to the NDP’s 25.4 percent, the Bloc’s 19.3 percent, and the Conservative’s 16.7 percent.

In the 2019 election, when the Liberals lost their majority, the party won 34.3 percent of the Quebec vote while the Bloc gained 32.4 percent, the Conservatives gained 16 percent, and the NDP gained 10.8 percent.

In the election two years later, the Liberals’ share was down to 33.6 percent of the vote compared to the Bloc’s 32.1 percent, the Conservative Party increased its share to 18.6 percent and NDP support dropped to 9.8 percent.

The poll also found that 47 percent of voters said they would be more likely to vote Liberal if Mr. Trudeau was no longer party leader. There was a slight generational divide in those numbers with 57 percent of voters aged 18 to 34 saying they would support the Liberals if Mr. Trudeau resigned and 52 percent of those aged 35 to 49 saying the same.

A separate poll by Pallas Data on Aug. 23 found most Canadians blamed the federal government for the country’s housing affordability crisis with 37.2 percent saying Ottawa deserved the most blame followed by 18.5 percent for provincial governments. Nine percent held the Bank of Canada and its mortgage rate policies responsible, and 7.3 percent blamed municipal governments.