The national Liberal Caucus began meeting this afternoon (Monday) in Nanaimo to prepare for the fall sitting of Parliament, but BC based pollster Mario Conseco of Research Co. says the party’s chances of rebuilding its support do not look promising.
Conseco says the Liberals can talk about what is being done to make the economy work better, or lower the unemployment rate, but rising costs for things such as housing are a big concern for many middle-aged and younger Canadians, and he says it’s a tough issue to solve in such a short period of time.
According to Conseco, a change in leadership may not do much to help reverse the party’s fortunes.
“It’s been a government built, particularly when it comes to foreign policy, around the image of the Prime Minister and this makes it very complicated for one of the ministers to raise their hand and say I’m ready to be the next person to lead the government.”
There’s been a steady decline in Justin Trudeau’s popularity over the past four years and the most recent poll by Research Co. discovered 38 percent of Canadians now think he’s the worst Prime Minister since 1968.
With the Supply and Confidence Agreement gone, the federal liberals now face a new session of parliament without the automatic support of the NDP.
Conseco says both the Liberals and NDP are losing popularity because middle-aged voters are disappointed with the results of the Supply and Confident agreement, especially Pharmacare.
He says Canadians expected the Pharmacare deal to be more all-encompassing.
“Looking into the early stages of this, we did a survey looking into what people expected to have covered by Pharmacare and it was significantly larger than what was ultimately offered by the government.”
He says the younger middle-aged voters that supported Justin Trudeau in 2015 are now facing higher costs and are looking at things differently.
Conseco says they’re a group the liberals desperately need to hold on to.
The federal caucus is meeting at the Vancouver Island Convention Centre in Nanaimo until Wednesday.
