Tories lose their edge

Canadian · Post by **Canadian** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:33 pm

Canadians aren’t buying Environment Minister John Baird’s dire warnings that honouring the Kyoto protocol would lead to a deep economic recession or that his new plan to crack down on industrial pollution is the toughest in the world, a new poll has revealed. The survey, conducted by Ipsos Reid from May 8 to May 10 for CanWest News Service and Global National, found that 61 per cent of Canadians believe the Conservative government’s new plan “does not go far enough or move with enough urgency to make a meaningful contribution to the global effort to fight climate change.”

When asked if they personally believed the plan was a good one, only 40 per cent of respondents answered yes, while 52 per cent said it was "a bad plan."

A week before introducing the new regulations, Baird used an appearance before a Senate committee to trash Canada’s Kyoto protocol commitments, arguing that honouring the international obligations to reduce greenhouse gas pollution in Canada would lead to a massive job losses, skyrocketing energy costs and a major recession. But according to the poll, only 32 per cent of Canadians believed him while 55 per cent said he was "just saying these things to scare people so that the government doesn’t have to do things it doesn’t want to do."
John Wright, senior vice-president at Ipsos Reid, says the latest poll numbers suggest Canadians do not believe that the environmental agenda of the Conservatives is genuine.

Sounds like people are realizing what liars they really are.

If an election were held now, the Liberals would have a slight advantage, nationally, at 32 per cent, followed by the Conservatives at 31 per cent, the NDP at 17 per cent, and the Green Party at nine per cent support. The poll surveyed 1,000 Canadians and is considered to be accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

So this is the second poll in a row with the Libs ahead by one, so this backs up the Decima one from last week.

This is the best part:

He said it’s clear that the public is willing to go farther than the politicians on the issue, and it believes the Conservative government is delivering policies that are designed to protect industries such as the oilsands in their Alberta base.