(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The Conservative party remains ahead in Canada’s federal political scene, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies released by the Toronto Star. 34 per cent of respondents would vote for the Tories in the next election to the House of Commons.

The Liberal party is second with 28 per cent—down three points since mid-February—followed by the New Democratic Party (NDP) with 18 per cent, the Bloc Québécois with 10 per cent, and the Green party with nine per cent.

Canadians renewed the House of Commons in January 2006. The Conservative party—led by Stephen Harper—received 36.3 per cent of the vote, and secured 124 seats in the 308-member lower house. Harper leads a minority administration after more than 12 years of government by the Liberal party. In December 2006, former environment minister Stéphane Dion became the new leader of the Liberals.

On Feb. 26, the Tory government presented its federal budget. The three main federal opposition parties—the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc—could force an early election if they reject the spending plan in the House of Commons.

On Mar. 3, Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty discussed his tenure, saying, "We’ve reduced taxes of every kind consumption taxes, income taxes, corporate taxes dramatically, excise taxes, the GST by two full percentage points. We believe in controlling the size of government and controlling growth of government. Those are statements that are all true about our government. They’re true about the budgets that we’ve undertaken."

On that same day, Dion explained his rationale to let the budget stand, saying, "Everybody agrees that this budget is not meaningful enough to justify an election. So no election about the budget."

Polling Data

If a federal election were held tomorrow, which one of the following parties would you be most likely to support in your constituency?

Source: Angus Reid Strategies
Methodology: Online interviews with 1,036 Canadian adults, conducted on Feb. 20 to Mar. 2, 2008. Margin of error is 3.0 per cent.

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