In what is likely the final federal opinion poll of 2017, the Liberals still hold a commanding lead in voting intentions. It comes even after a scandal-plagued second half of 2017 that saw outrage from small businesses over tax reform, calls for Finance Minister Bill Morneau's resignation, and a scathing indictment of Justin Trudeau's carribbean holiday with the Aga Khan by the outgoing ethics commissioner.
A new Nanos poll released this weekend shows that 42.8% of Canadian voters would vote for the Liberal Party of Canada, up over three points from their performance at the 2015 federal election. The Conservative Party sits in a distant second with 29.1%, down about three points from their 2015 result. The New Democrats sit at 20.0%, just slightly up from their share of the vote twenty-seven months ago. The Bloc Québécois sits at a meagre 3.3%, while the Greens stood at 4.2%.
Just shy of half -- 48.3% -- of the survey's 1000 respondents told Nanos that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the best option of the five party leaders to govern the country; just 22% think Tory leader Andrew Scheer would do a better job. Just shy of 8% chose NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, while 4.5% thought Elizabeth May would be the best Prime Minister. 17% said they didn't know which leader would do the best job.
Nearly two-thirds of voters said that the Prime Minister has the "qualities of a good political leader". 39.4% felt the same way about Scheer, but that actually placed him behind both the Green and NDP leaders, for whom just over 40% of respondents thought each have good leadership qualties. Even among only Quebec voters, less than 24% of respondents thought Bloc leader Martine Ouellet has good leadership characteristics.