(03/19/11) -

Canadians Not Thrilled About Political Parties and Leaders

“Displeasure” is the emotion associated the most with Conservatives and Liberals, while “optimism” is preferred for the NDP.

Canadians do not embody a particularly high level of empathy with the country’s major political parties and leaders, a new Vision Critical / Angus Reid poll conducted for the Toronto Star has found.

Relying on Robert Plutchik’s psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion, the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,003 Canadians asked respondents to click up to four words that describe their feelings towards the country’s three major political parties: the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party (NDP), as well as their respective leaders: Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton.

The Parties

Conservative Party – The words used the most by respondents are displeasure (32%), acceptance (23%), optimism (22%), and disgust (22%). Since 2007, there are marked drops in several categories, including anticipation (from 22% to 17%), optimism (from 29% to 22%) and fear (from 23% to 13%).

Liberal Party – The words used the most by respondents are displeasure (36%), disgust (20%), contempt (17%), and shame (16%). Since 2007, displeasure is down by eight points, and both anger and disgust have dropped by 10 points.

New Democratic Party (NDP) – The words used the most by respondents are optimism (28%), acceptance (21%), displeasure (17%) and wonder (15%). The proportion of respondents who select displeasure has fallen by nine points since 2007, and anticipation is down from 19 per cent to 15 per cent.

The Leaders

Stephen Harper – The words used the most by respondents are displeasure (35%), acceptance (28%), optimism (26%), and disgust (25%). Since 2007, there are marked increases in some negative categories, such as shame (+9) and disgust (+4), but also on some positive ones, including acceptance (+5) and optimism (+3).

Michael Ignatieff – The words used the most by respondents are displeasure (38%), disgust (25%) and contempt (21%). Since 2007, when Stéphane Dion was heading the federal Grits, more respondents are using words like displeasure (+10), disgust (+12) and contempt (+6) to describe the leader of the opposition.

Jack Layton – The words used the most by respondents are optimism (34%), acceptance (26%), displeasure (22%), and wonder (16%). The four-point jump on optimism since 2007 is countered by a five-point increase on displeasure.

Analysis

As the likelihood of a federal election campaign increases, Canadians are not particularly sold on any party or leader at this point.

For the Tories and Harper, the drop on fear and the high marks on acceptance may provide some comfort, but displeasure is the primary emotion for practically two-in-five Canadians. The Liberals have managed to shed some numbers off displeasure, disgust, contempt and anger, but their current leader is getting worse reviews on this survey than the previous one. Both the NDP and Layton show good numbers on optimism and acceptance, but these good feelings have not manifested in sizeable gains when it comes to voting intention.

Since 2007, the Liberals have recovered from some of the negative connotations associated with the sponsorship scandal, while the NDP has kept stable numbers. The views on the Conservatives have hardened on some issues. While their leader is now ahead of his two main rivals on acceptance, he also leads on shame and anger.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

CONTACT:

Jaideep Mukerji, Vice President, Public Affairs, Canada
+613 691 0948
jaideep.mukerji@visioncritical.com

Methodology: From March 16 to March 17, 2011, Vision Critical / Angus Reid conducted an online survey among 1,003 randomly selected Canadian adults who are Angus Reid Forum panelists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1%, 19 times out of 20. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of Canada. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.