The Federal economic statement falls flat but most Canadians weren’t paying attention
The Federal economic statement falls flat but most didn’t notice.
On December 18th, INNOVATIVE released the results of an online poll investigating Canadians’ reaction to the recent economic update presented by the Liberal government.
Most Canadians didn’t pay attention to the economic update – only 38% of respondents say they heard about the update. Across Canada, attention was highest in Alberta where it peaked at 40% and lowest in the prairies at only 34%.
The low attention might be a good thing for the Liberals. A plurality of Canadians who heard about it say it left them dissatisfied (39%) and feeling less favourably about the Liberal government (38%). This includes 23% who say they were left feeling much less favourable, compared to only 5% who say they were left feeling much more favourable.
However, the Liberal economic update did get a mostly positive response New Democrats who reacted similarly to Liberal partisans and much better than partisans supporting other smaller parties and unaligned voters. This is good news for the Liberals in terms of the practical dynamics of managing a minority government as NDP support is sufficient to keep the government in power.
The bottom line is that this is not a statement that has set the stage for an election, It neither served to rally the Liberals base and target voters nor did it make it easy for the Liberal’s opponents to unite against them.
To read the full report click here
