Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to establish a solid governing majority in Ottawa is looking like an increasingly bad bet as a new weekend poll once again put the opposition Conservatives in the lead.
Mr. Trudeau, who has been heading a minority government, called a snap election last month two years early, saying he needed a stronger government in part to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak still afflicting the country.
Polls this summer gave the center-left Liberals a clear edge, but voter resentment at the early election, continuing coronavirus challenges and a disciplined campaign by new Conservative party head Erin O’Toole have suddenly put Mr. Trudeau’s six-year grip on power in serious question.
An EKOS daily tracking poll released Saturday gave the Conservative 35.5% support to the Liberal’s 28.8%, with the left-wing New Democratic Party at just under 20%. It was the largest gap between the two top parties registered so far.
Pollsters say they detect signs of Trudeau fatigue among the electorate, with the most recent headlines dominated by a resurgence of COVID-19 and the troubled U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Sometimes incumbents can underestimate when the electorate is looking for change,” Jenni Byrne, a political commentator and former Conservative campaign manager, told the BBC late last week.
Hope is not lost for Mr. Trudeau, who managed to hold on to the prime minister’s post in the last election despite the Conservatives getting more votes.
A CBC compilation of all recent polls gives Mr. O’Toole’s Conservatives a much narrower 34.1% to 31.2% lead over the Liberals, with Mr. Trudeau still the slight favorite because Canada’s parliamentary system provides more seats in vote-rich Ontario and Quebec.
But Mr. Trudeau’s hopes that he could nail down a solid governing mandate from the surprise election appear to have gone out the window. The collection of polls suggest the Conservatives surpassed the Liberals in late August and have been widening their lead ever since.
“The Liberals are a little more likely than the Conservatives to win the most seats,” according to the CBC analysis. “But the odds that the Conservatives win the most seats have increased to almost 1-in-2, while the chances of a minority government are more than 80%.”
Political analysts say Mr. Trudeau, 49, still has time to close the gap in the campaign’s final days. Liberal Party candidates have begun to hammer on social wedge issues such as gun control, health care and COVID-19 vaccination mandates in an effort to raise doubts about the relatively untested Mr. O’Toole.
But there was little sign that the candidates’ first debate of the campaign, conducted in French last week, had done anything to reverse the Conservatives’ momentum or throw the opposition on the defensive. Mr. Trudeau was forced to defend his decision to call the election in the midst of a fourth coronavirus wave in the country.
The incumbent was the aggressor for much of the debate, hitting Mr. O’Toole for not requiring all Conservative candidates to get the COVID vaccine and for opposing mandatory national vaccinations.
Mr. O’Toole, 48, and his wife have received the vaccine and encouraged all Canadians to do so as well, but argued, “We shouldn’t force Canadians. It’s a decision for individual Canadians on a health matter.”
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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