Liberals lose ground during first week of campaign: Poll
September 13, 2008
The Canadian Press, 2008
OTTAWA – The latest polling results suggest Stephane Dion's Liberals continued to lose ground during the opening week of the federal election campaign.
According to The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey, Liberal support slipped to 24 per cent, a full 17-points behind Stephen Harper's Conservatives at 41 per cent.
The NDP and Green party made modest gains at the Liberals' expense, ending the week at 16 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
The Liberals were ahead of the pack only in Atlantic Canada, with an eight-point lead over the Conservatives.
In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois led with 36 per cent, followed closely by the Conservatives at 30 per cent, the Liberals at 16 per cent and the NDP at 10 per cent.
The telephone poll of 1,200 Canadians was conducted Sept. 9 through Sept. 12 and is considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.9 percentage points, 19 times in 20.
More information on the poll is available from
www.harrisdecima.ca.
Respondents to the poll were asked: "If a federal election were held tomorrow, who do you think you would be voting for in your area?"
Today in Fredericton, Harper says Canadians have shifted to the right and made the country more conservative since he’s been in politics.
But Conservatives must govern in the interests of the broad majority of the population if they want to stay in power, he added.
”I don’t want to say the Canadian public is overwhelmingly conservative or that it is necessarily as conservative as everybody in our party,” he said in Fredericton at the start of a weekend swing through Atlantic Canada.
“And that means that our party has to make sure that it continues to govern in the interests of the broad majority of the population. That means not only that we want to pull Canadians towards conservatism, but Conservatives also have to move towards Canadians.”
Harper said when he entered politics, Canada was debating whether balanced budgets and trade were a good thing.
Since then, he says there’s been a ”tremendous” change among Canadians who have embraced many small-c conservative values.
The military has joined the CBC and medicare as a source of national pride, he said.
In terms of the economy, the Liberals and New Democrats are out of step with Canadians, Harper said.
Their policies take a ”pre-free trade, Cold War” approach to the economy that will hurt the country, he said.
http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/434847