It's clear now that, with the first polling after the interim Gomery report out, no one really likes anyone anymore.
The results suggest the Conservatives are the preferred option of 31 per cent of Canadians, 3 percentage points ahead of the Liberals, who are favoured by 28 per cent. The New Democrats are third with 20 per cent, while the Green Party is the first choice of 7 per cent. The Tories last led the Liberals in early May, when front pages were dominated by explosive testimony at the inquiry into allegations that money from the sponsorship program, a national unity initiative aimed mainly at Quebec, was misused.What causes the Liberals to not collapse entirely, the Tories to take off (not) and are 7% really going to check off the Green candidate? What a mess. You know, I am quite certain what the Gomery report says is that the Federal civil service has been let down by a lack of quality in the political leadership. The country has been largely well run as the economic indicators show but should the guys at the top take credit? Not one candidate for the Prime Minister has captured the imagination of Canadians for, what, a decade? I swear (and I mean swear) I would consider voting Tory if they had any sort of credible unifying candidate - New Brunswick's Bernard Lord, say - just to break the tedium of this log jam.
Comments
Marian - November 5, 2005 2:32 PM
I don’t know about you but I'm kind of sick of hearing about this particular scandal and think it barely qualifies as news. It was news several years ago, now it's like an old sock that's been left lying around. Also, I like the minority government we have. It seems to be possible to get these guys to actually listen to the electorate. On the issue of leadership change: maybe we should just get used to the fact that visionary leadership is rare and if we go around tossing out merely adequate leaders like they do in the conservative party we'll soon run out of willing victims. There's already a lot of competition from the private sector. And you don't have to put up with the panopticon created by 24 hour news and blogs if you work for a private corporation.