Trudeau may be set to lose his next election to Pierre Poilievre

In December 2023, Justin Trudeau reached a low point in the Angus Ried Institute's approval tracker of the prime minister. Only 30% of the country supported Trudeau at that time. It's a number that rose by a mere 2 points in January 2024, and it has a lot to say about the PM's future.

Trudeau's problems have been mounting in recent months as the country has turned away from the once-popular leader and toward worries about the dwindling quality of life in Canada. An out-of-control housing market coupled with higher costs have taken their toll on Canadians.

On November 2023, the global public opinion and market research firm Ipsos found that 72% of Canadians revealed they polled wanted Trudeau to step down as leader of the Liberal Party and end his leadership of the country. It was a finding that didn't surprise many people.

The most recent indication that Trudeau might need to step aside comes from the ruling on his government's actions during the Freedom Convey protests that saw the federal government invoke the Emergencies Act to bring an end to the disruptive political protests.

“I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency, and intelligibility — and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.” Justice Richard G. Mosley wrote according to Global News

Whether or not the ruling will further affect Trudeau's popularity in the country has yet to be seen but it likely will not help the dwindling support he and the Liberal Party have been losing among key voters all across the country.

On the other hand, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has become a popular opposition figure in relation to Trudeau, and in December polling began to show that Poilievre's efforts to push Canadians towards his party were starting to pay off.

Naxos Polling found the Conservative Party would have won a majority in mid-December if the election had been held at that time according to CTV News, which meant that Poilievre was going into the new year with a very healthy trend showing Canadians were ready for a change.

In mid-January 2024, polling from Abacus Data revealed that the trend of Conservative dominance continued into the new year. The public opinion firm found that a survey of 1,500 registered voters revealed that 41% of those who planned to vote would choose Poilievre and the Conservatives.

Trudeau and the Liberal Party only snatched 24% of the vote share while Jagmeet Singh and the New Democratic Party were able to take 18% of the vote. Other poll findings within the last four months suggest Trudeau's time in office might be at an end when the next federal election occurs.

Justin Trudeau has been going through a bout of unpopularity with Canadian voters and it seems more people are willing to give the Prime Minister’s political rival a chance than ever before according to a new poll. But could Trudeau actually lose to Pierre Poilievre?

Global market research and public opinion firm Ipsos polled Canadians in September on their thoughts about who would be the best Prime Minister for the country going forward and as many as 60% of respondents made it very clear that it was not Trudeau, which shows that number just 17% in just two months based on Ipsos' polling in November 2023.

Six in ten people surveyed by Ipsos said Trudeau needed to step down as Prime Minister of Canada before the next election, a number the public opinion group noted was up by six points since December 2022. But that wasn’t the only interesting finding. 

59% of undecided voters believed the Prime Minister needed to step down before the next election and 28% of Liberal voters thought it was time for Trudeau to resign as leader of the Liberal Party. Things got worse for Trudeau when Ipsos measured popularity. 

Less than one-third of Canadians (31%) believe Trudeau is still the best person to serve as the country’s Prime Minister while 40% of the survey respondents said they thought Poilievre would be Canada's best leader. 22% of people chose Jagmeet Singh. 

Poilievre beat Trudeau out on trustworthiness with 26% of respondents saying that they trusted Poilievre while only 20% of respondents trusted Trudeau. An Ipsos press release noted that this number was up by seven points since September 2022. 

Interestingly, both politicians were thought to have hidden agendas by respondents with 35% of people thinking so for Trudeau while only (32%) thought so for Poilievre. Luckily for Poilievre, this did not seem to affect his scoring on some of Canada's key issues. 

Poilievre didn’t just beat Trudeau on his trustworthiness. Voters thought the leader of the Conservative Party had the best plans for tackling the issues facing Canada’s economy as well as problems related to healthcare and housing. 

All of this may have you questioning what Poilievre has been doing to win over support from Canadians. But it’s likely less what Polievre is doing and more what Trudeau is not doing based on the recent downturn in the PM’s popularity. 

“I feel like a physician giving bad news to a patient, because it isn’t great news, but they aren’t shocked,” Abacus Data CEO David Coletto said in a telephone interview with The Hill Times from London Ontario where the pollster presented findings at the Liberal caucus. 

“They need to do something to reset and get the public looking at them… and their plan in a new way,” the pollster added. But Trudeau and the Liberals aren’t likely to win any sympathizers with the dual crises of affordability and housing on everyone’s minds. 

Data from an Abacus Data poll released on September 14th discovered that affordability issues were “dominating the public agenda.” The rising cost of living as well as access to housing and its affordability were the top two issues on voters' minds at the time. 

That poll also found the Conservative Party had a 15-point lead over the Liberal Party at the time, and if a federal election were held at that time, Poilievre’s Conservatives would enjoy 41% of the vote share compared to 26% for the Liberals. 

The Abacus Data poll suggested the Conservative Party was leading in every region of the country excluding Quebec, which saw the Bloc Quebecois ahead of all other federal parties—which in and of itself was bad news for Trudeau’s Liberals. 

Coletto explained to The Hill Times declining Liberal support was due to the culmination of factors that included the interest rate hikes as well as the ever-rising costs to buy or rent a home. 

Pollster Nik Nanos told The Hill Times Canadians think the Liberals are saying all the right things but added that Trudeau hasn’t delivered on any of his major promises and this is why the Liberals are losing support to the Conservatives and New Democrats. 

The political dynamics of Canada’s problems have created a situation where Canadians seem to be ready for new leadership. Whether or not Poilievre will beat Trudeau in the next election has yet to be seen. But it's looking like he has a good shot at winning.