Two more polls: Ipsos and COMPAS

I looked at the EKOS poll yesterday; the Ipsos and COMPAS polls are even more dramatic.

Here is a link to detailed tables of poll results from Ipsos. If you have ten minutes, they're a fascinating read. I really like how Ipsos described the coalition before it asked voters to comment on it -- it mentioned that the Bloc was part of it (which many media still refuse to do); but it noted that the Bloc would not have cabinet seats -- the Liberals and NDP would. And Ipsos noted that, under our constitution, this was indeed legal. Pretty balanced question.

The key numbers are the party voting intention numbers. If the election were held today, the Tories would get 46%, the Liberals 23% and the NDP 13%. In the West, the numbers are huge, of course -- 72% for the Tories in Alberta. But it's also 50% in Ontario and 48% in the Atlantic provinces. That's panic time for Liberal MPs -- that's a majority out of English Canada seats alone.

65% of Ontarians oppose the Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition; only 32% support it. Again, that's three parties (Liberal, NDP, Green) fighting over a third of the vote (plus the Bloc in Quebec) versus the Tories fishing for that 65% on their own.

66% of Ontarians say the Tories should fight this putsch.

And a stunning 67% of Ontarians are opposed to Stephane Dion becoming prime minister -- the majority of them "strongly opposed".

(I'm focusing on Ontario numbers, because they're the most interesting. Of course the Western numbers are higher still.)

My favourite result, though is on page 9 of the poll. It goes to the policy proposal that caused this whole constitutional crisis in the first place: Harper's proposal to end taxpayer subsidies to political parties. 61% of Canadians support Harper's proposal; only 36% don't. In Ontario, the numberas are 64% to 32%. Even in Quebec, a majority of people want the subsidies scrapped.

Ipsos also asks who's best to manage the economy: Harper's Conservatives or Dion's coalition. No surprise here. Canadians choose Harper, 59% to 33%. Ontarians are even more lopsided: they're for Harper, 66% to 26%.

69% of Ontarians are "angry" at Dion and the coalition -- 2/3 of those are "very angry".

If I were a Liberal, I'd be doing everything in my power to scupper this coalition.

COMPAS's numbers are just as interesting. You can see them in detail here. 69% of Canadians would want another election if Harper wanted it -- amazing, considering we just had an election two months ago. Even most Quebeckers agree.

For the basic "who would you vote for?" question, the Tories would sweep every region except Quebec, but there they would run just three points back of the Bloc.

I love the question on page 5: when COMPAS asked Canadians if they thought the Liberal putsch was based on an honest belief that Harper was a bad economic manager, or whether it was just a plain old power grab by the opposition, Canadians saw it as a power grab, by a 54% to 28% margin, even steeper in Ontario.

Some more Ontario-only numbers: 71% think it's wrong for separatists to choose our Prime Minister; 66% think it's wrong for the Liberals to presume to be government, after a shellacking in the polls; 60% think the coalition are trying to cheat voters.

Page 7 has a doozy; I'll paste a snapshot of the chart right here.

It asks voters who they trust most to run the economy and Parliament -- Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Jack Layton, or Gilles Duceppe. Again, Ontario numbers only: Harper 53%, Ignatieff 8%, Dion 9%. Ouch.

That's a lot of numbers. There is some variation amongst the EKOS, COMPAS and Ipsos polls, but they all tell the same story: Canadians are furious about the Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition. They see it as a power grab. They see it as undemocratic. And they see it as an unacceptable pact with the Bloc. It's a heartening reminder that the Parliamentary Press Gallery's visceral dislike for Harper and the Conservatives is not representative of Canadians in general.

The press gallery finds Harper more offensive than Duceppe or Dion, they think undoing the results of the general election is democratically acceptable; and they think handing over the reins of the economy to a socialist, a separatist and a lame duck Liberal preferable than a conservative economist. Canadians don't.