The 2024 federal budget failed to spark a much-needed rebound in the polls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s lagging Liberal Party, according to a new Ipsos poll released Tuesday.
Canadian reaction to the Liberal government’s latest spending plans shows a historic challenge ahead for the ruling party as it tries to keep the reins of government out of the hands of the Conservative Party in the next election, according to a pollster.
“If the purpose of the budget was to achieve a political reset, it didn’t seem to happen,” says Darrell Bricker, executive director of Ipsos Global Public Affairs.
A symbolic ‘shrug’ for Budget 2024
The 2024 federal budget presented last week included billions of dollars in new spending aimed at improving “generational justice” and quickly filling Canada’s housing supply gap.
Ipsos polls conducted exclusively for Global News show that voter reactions to the 2024 federal budget ranged mostly from mediocre to largely negative.
After excluding those who said they “don’t know” how they feel about the federal budget (28 per cent), only 17 per cent of Canadians surveyed about the spending plan in the two days after it was released said they they would give it “two thumbs up.” Around 40 per cent, meanwhile, said they would give it a “thumb” and the rest (43 per cent) gave a symbolic “shrug” to Budget 2024.
Ipsos polls show that few Canadians approve of Budget 2024.
Ipsos / Global News
Rejection reactions increased to 63 per cent among respondents in Alberta and 55 per cent among those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
About 10 percent of respondents said the budget would help them personally, while 37 percent said it would be harmful, after again excluding those who said they didn’t know what the impact would be.
When asked how they would vote if a federal election were held today, 43 per cent of respondents said they would choose the Conservatives, while 24 per cent said they would vote Liberal, followed by 19 per cent who would lean Liberal. the NDP.
The Conservative lead has increased by one point from the previous month, Bricker notes, suggesting that Budget 2024 has failed to stop the bleeding of the Liberals in power.
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Only eight per cent of respondents to the Ipsos poll said the budget made them more likely to vote Liberal in the next election, while about a third (34 per cent) said it made them less likely.
“The initial impression from Canadians is that there hasn’t been much difference,” Bricker says.
Sentiment toward liberals remains slightly higher among Gen Z and millennial voters (the demographic that appeared to be the focus of Budget 2024), but Bricker says opinions remain “overwhelmingly negative” across generational lines.
Heading into the 2024 budget, the Liberals were under pressure to improve affordability in Canada amid a rising cost of living and an unaffordable housing market, an Ipsos poll conducted last month showed.
The spending plan included items to eliminate junk fees on banking services and concert tickets, as well as some items aimed at making it easier for first-time homebuyers to enter the housing market. It also included a proposed change to the way some capital gains are taxed, which the Liberals said would target the wealthiest Canadians.
Paul Kershaw, founder of Generation Squeeze, told Global News after the release of the federal budget that while he was encouraged by the recognition of the economic injustice facing younger demographics, there is no quick fix to the affordability crisis. in the real estate market.
A Steep Hill for Liberals to Climb
Trudeau, his cabinet ministers and Liberal MPs have hit the road before and after the budget’s release to promote items in the spending plan.
Bricker says this is a typical post-budget playbook, but so far it appears there’s nothing that “really resonated with Canadians” in the first few days after the spending plans were released. Liberals have a chance to accomplish something along the way, he says, but “it’s not looking very good.”
“Maybe over the course of the next year they can show that they have really changed something,” he says.
Bricker notes, however, that public opinion has changed little in federal politics over the past year.
The next federal election is scheduled for October 2025 at the latest, but could be called sooner if the Liberals fail a confidence vote or bring down the government themselves.
But a vote today would see the Liberals likely to lose to a “very, very large majority of the Conservative Party,” Bricker says.
“What we’re seeing is that if things continue the way they’ve been doing for the last year, they’re going to end up in a situation where, almost a record low in terms of number of seats,” he said. she says.
The Conservatives lead in all regions of the country, except Quebec, where the Bloc Quebecois is in first position, according to the Ipsos poll.
Meanwhile, liberals face “a solid wall of public disapproval,” Bricker says. About 32 percent of voters said they would never consider voting Liberal in the next election, higher than the 27 percent who said the same about the Conservatives, according to Ipsos.
Typically, Bricker says a party in power can maintain an advantage in some demographic, age group or region and build a re-election strategy from there.
But this liberal party lacks support in the electorate, making prospects look bleak in the upcoming federal election; is so grim that it even invokes the historic defeat of the Progressive Conservative Party in the 1993 election.
“The hill they have to climb is incredibly difficult,” Bricker says.
“I haven’t seen a hill this high in federal politics since Brian Mulroney faced a very similar situation in 1991 and 1992. And we all know what happened with that.”
