It appears that Dictator Harper's message is being heard.Canadians may be willing to re-elect Stephen Harper's Conservatives but they're hesitant about a Tory majority, a new national poll suggests.
The Decima survey put support for the Conservatives at 38 per cent - slightly higher than on election day but lower than other recent polls. Forty-three per cent of respondents said they wanted to see the Conservatives win the next election, but just 30 per cent said they'd like to see Harper form a majority government.
The survey of 1,008 Canadians, conducted May 25-28, had the Liberals at 29 per cent and the NDP at 21.
For Tories in power in Ottawa for the first time in 13 years, the survey results may appear as a glass half empty or half full.
"It's one thing to say I'm more comfortable with the idea of Conservatives governing the country than Liberals," pollster Bruce Anderson, CEO of Decima, said Thursday.
"It's a further step to say: 'And let's give them the biggest possible mandate because we completely buy into their agenda."'
Decima asked respondents what outcome they'd like to see in the next federal election, notwithstanding their voting preference.
Alberta and Quebec respondents were most content with a Conservative win, and Alberta was the only province where a majority (55 per cent) wanted a Tory majority government.
Atlantic Canada preferred a Liberal win, with Ontario and B.C. evenly split. None of those regions much wanted a Tory majority, with all three polling 25 per cent or less.
Anderson noted that:
-More women, nationally, wanted to see a Conservative majority than a Liberal majority.
-Fifty-nine 59 per cent of Bloc voters want a Tory government.
-Even amongst New Democrats, 28 per cent would prefer a Conservative win.
"The kind of resistance that we'd seen to (the Conservative party) in the previous year and a half has dropped away quite significantly," said the pollster.
The basic horse-race numbers, however, do little to suggest the Conservatives are consolidating their lead in public opinion.
The governing party polled as high as 43 per cent in one recent survey and was backed by 41 per cent in a Decima poll early in May.
The latest poll is considered accurate within plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times in 20.
Less accurate regional breakdowns put the Tories just four points behind the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec: Bloc 35, Conservatives 31, Liberals 18 and NDP 12.
In Ontario, the Liberals (37 per cent) and Tories (36) were statistically tied.
Anderson, who has further surveys in the works plumbing public attitudes on the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, believes those two issues may be causing hesitation for some voters - even those who on balance approve of Conservative management to date.source
And Canadians still don't buy into it.
Watch for his numbers start to drop as fast as a Bush poll rating once the Liberals elect a new leader.
