This is why Canadians think Trudeau wants to stay on as Prime Minister

Some of the latest polling from market research firms in Canada shows that Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party is still lagging far behind the Conservative Party. However, the Prime Minister shows no signs he's planning to step down as party leader.

On June 16th, Abacus Data revealed Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives are holding strong at 42% of the vote share among committed voters while Trudeau's Liberals netted 22%, the New Democratic Party 19%, and the Green Party at 5%.

"The Conservatives lead by 20, the Liberal vote share is the lowest we have seen measured since October 2015, and the general mood of the country has not changed in any meaningful way," explained Abacus Data CEO David Coletto.

Abacus Data's polling found there was a strong desire for a change in government, something that 54% of survey respondents said they wanted, noting that they also thought there was a good alternative. But a change at the tip for the Liberal Party isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

In March 2024, Trudeau said he often thought about quitting his “crazy job” during an interview with Radio-Canada but said that he would stay in office until the next election according to a report from Reuters. 

"I could not be the man I am and abandon the fight at this point," Trudeau said. But new polling data from Leger revealed Canadians have an interesting view on his motivations. 

Trudeau's comments made it clear he plans to remain as leader of the Liberal Party for now and polling from the leading Canadian market research firm Leger published on May 29th found that Canadians have a lot of mixed feelings about why they think the Prime Minister is staying on as leader of the party and country.

Leger found that 47% of Canadians think Trudeau only wants to remain Prime Minister because he likes the job and doesn’t want to quit. But we learned a lot more than that from the survey. 

One-quarter of those surveyed (23%) responded that they believe Trudeau plans to stay on as Prime Minister of Canada so that he can implement more of his political policies. 

A smaller but still significant portion of Canadians (18%) reported they thought Trudeau was only staying on as leader because there were no suitable alternative replacements.  

Another 15% of Canadians think Trudeau wants to remain in power so that he can face off against Pierre Polievre in the next election, which is an idea that does make sense. 

One of the more interesting findings of Leger’s polling discovered that 60% of Conservatives thought Trudeau wanted to stay on as Prime Minister only because he liked the position. 

On the other hand, 45% of Liberal voters noted they thought Trudeau wanted to stay on because he wanted to implement more of his policies. 

Only 26% of Liberal voters said they thought Trudeau wanted to stay in office so that he could face off against Poilievre while 26% said it was because he had no replacements.  

Leger also found that Poilievre’s Conservatives held a 19-point lead over Trudeau and the Liberals with nearly half of people noting they would vote Conservative over Liberal. These findings are only slightly less than what Abacus Data recently discovered in its polling.

42% of respondents said that they would vote Conservative if the election were held at that time while only 23% of people noted that they would have voted for the Liberals. 

Two-thirds of people (66%) also indicated that they were dissatisfied with Trudeau and his government while 27% of those surveyed said they were satisfied with the Liberals. 

Leger Vice President Andrew Enns explained at the time that the polling focused on Trudeau’s impression with voters should be very worrying for the Prime Minister and the Liberals. 

“The impression of the prime minister… almost becomes that the prime minister is sort of being self-serving by staying there,” Enns explained according to the National Post. 

Enns added Trudeau’s image issue is another reason for Canadians not having a good impression of the Prime Minister, which is a problem. How this issue will affect Trudeau in the next election has yet to be seen, but it could mark the end of his time in office.

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