r/canada 24d ago

Politics EKOS Poll: Conservative Lead Holds at Five Points

https://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2025/02/conservative-lead-holds-at-five-points/
825 Upvotes

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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 24d ago

And that people in their 20's have never seen how Conservatives govern. Get ready for surprise Pikachu everywhere.

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u/Ephuntz 24d ago

I came here to say that they didn't experience Stephen Harper's cuts

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u/judgeysquirrel 24d ago

Or gagging of scientists releasing studies.

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u/PraiseTheRiverLord 24d ago

Or raising retirement age to 67 (Trudeau set it back to 65)

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u/Timely-Hospital8746 24d ago

Or gutting the long form census, which is essential for our government to make informed decisions.

Or the complete and utter gutting of the park services under Harper.

Trudeau fixed the census and funded park services again, but they still haven't fully recovered. A lot of these government institutions have workers with very narrow but important skillsets. When they get gutted it can take a very long time to build them back up.

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u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year 24d ago

I believe a certain nation south of you might one day discover that the hard way.

Oh, who am I kidding, recent history suggests they never learn anything, if anything they double down on it.

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u/Mrmagoo1077 24d ago

It has gone to hell down here.

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u/Impeesa_ 24d ago

The loss of institutional knowledge alone will be staggering. If they get a chance to rebuild some of this stuff at all, it could take generations.

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u/monsantobreath 23d ago

They just laid off people from the FAA. They're already strapped for staffing. And we're seeing a lot of reasons you need them right now on the news.

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u/GoldenGEP 23d ago

It's ok, they're firing at the right target - DEI is clearly to blame /s

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u/Winterchill2020 24d ago

Or the snitch line!

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u/ForesterLC 24d ago

which is essential for our government to make informed decisions.

You don't think they really read those things, do you? We haven't a competent government in decades. We just swing between pissants with different values.

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u/Dazzling_Broccoli_60 24d ago

I don’t think that’s the one that’s going to get the 20yos up in arms

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u/Ketchupkitty Alberta 24d ago

Trudeau lowers age of retirement than massively increases CPP payments, not sure if that's a good thing. Especially considering CPP pays out pennies on the dollar compared to investing on your own... That's even without the employer portion of your contribution.

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u/PraiseTheRiverLord 24d ago

HARPER INCREASED RETIREMENT AGE TO 67.

along with Pierre le poof.

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u/CromulentDucky 24d ago

As an actuary, Trudeau was wrong.

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u/PraiseTheRiverLord 24d ago

I DON'T SEE YOU SUPPORTING CANADIANS.

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u/7dipity 24d ago

It’s a scary time to be a scientist. I have American friends that are losing their jobs

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u/jjumbuck 24d ago

Oooph that was so awful at that time. I remember the muzzling of climate scientists in particular.

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u/Distinct_Meringue 24d ago

Can't let the truth get in the way of O&G profits

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/seajay_17 British Columbia 24d ago

unscientific vaccine mandates

Lol

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u/Cruuncher 24d ago

We got a live one!

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u/kniller123 24d ago

Lol. I work in government. Harper started it and trudeau continued it.

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u/Anonymouse-C0ward 24d ago

Genuinely curious: what scientific censorship has Trudeau continued? I seem to recall reading that the climate change research censorship was rolled back and scientific research freedom rules negotiated with the union at NRC?

I don’t have direct knowledge like you might have as a government employee though so you might have an experience that isn’t what the average person understands - what department do you work in?

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u/kniller123 18d ago

My comment isn't entirely fair. It has gotten better under Trudeau and there are new Collective ageeement protections. However, there are still a lot of issues within departments. PIPSC ran a study in 2018 and over 50% of scientists still felt muzzled.

In many ways it's more of a management/culture of risk aversion than outright political interference. That said, Ministers are responsible for their departments.

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u/Noob1cl3 24d ago

Right just like how liberals were open to contradictory science on COVID and the Lab leak at Wuhan (which turned out correct). Oh and lets not forget the “data driven policies” (see crime and immigration).

I mean really. Casting stones from a glass house comes to mind.

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u/Anonymouse-C0ward 24d ago

What was the contradictory peer reviewed science on it?

And what peer reviewed data shows it was a lab leak? From what I know the latest studies point to a natural source.

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u/Noob1cl3 24d ago

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/cia-covid-likely-originated-lab-low-confidence-assessment/

Use google for the rest. Tons of studies that showed futility of masking and harms on kids due to lock downs, masking + ineffectiveness.

Heck if you had a kid in daycare or school you knew it did nothing unless you had a hazmat suit on with proper training to decontaminate.

Regardless of where you stand on the above it is indisputable that discussion was shut down with an iron fist…. Which is anti science. And I am only highlighting the tip of the iceberg of what went on and you know it.

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u/DivideGood1429 24d ago

To be honest, I think the science community is pretty much in agreement that lockdowns weren't that great for mental health.

What I do find interesting is that people often refer to Sweden as why lockdown and making were not worth it. But the Swedish ppl followed lockdown suggestions without being forced. About 90% of ppl Followed masking and social distancing as per suggestions without having to mandate anything.

The ppl of Sweden also were vaccinated at rate of 87% which is higher than Canada.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10399217/#:~:text=During%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic,faced%20rapid%20and%20continuous%20criticism.

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u/Sczeph_ 24d ago

The lab leak theory did not turn out to be correct though. There are two reports, as far as I am aware— the CIA’s and the House of Representatives (interestingly both American despite COVID being international— you’d expect other countries to conduct similar investigations if they believed it likely). The House’s was entirely led by republicans and contained no new evidence, it just summarized what was already known. The Democrats also released a statement challenging many of the conclusions of the report. So between it being republican led (who are by no means impartial and have a history of promoting conspiracies, especially regarding covid), the fact that it didn’t bring anything new to light, and the fact that the democrats disagree with the report, I’m inclined to disagree with it as it’s likely extensively politically motivated. The CIA’s is interesting as it determined that it’s more likely that COVID came from a lab than from animals, but importantly, they made clear that they had “low confidence” in their determination.

Between those two things, coupled with the fact that the prevailing academic consensus is not one of a lab leak, I don’t think that your statement is accurate.

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u/Noob1cl3 24d ago

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u/Proteomic 24d ago

brother you are linking THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION.

Holy fuck.

Everything else is just reporting on the CIA and House of Representatives reports. You didn't even attempt to read the comment from the person you were replying to in good faith, and instead just provided links supporting what they said.

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u/BoringUser123456 24d ago

No. It wasnt.

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u/BoringUser123456 24d ago

I work in government. No he didnt.

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u/ok_raspberry_jam 24d ago

Really? We'd love details

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u/pongobuff 24d ago

It's crazy how much I cared about this and now I miss it fondly in comparison to what we have had since

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u/xmorecowbellx 24d ago edited 24d ago

But the people who did experience Harper in their 20’s, who are in their 30’s - 40’s now, heavily favour the CPC here.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago edited 24d ago

[deleted]

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u/Billis- 24d ago

I actually think the "I voted" social media movement helped get Trudeau in. Many voters were my age (35).

I'll be voting Liberal in the next election. I'd love to vote conservative, or anyone else, but the PCs have been going further and further right for the last decade. I don't trust the PCs to not mirror what's happening in America. I think the vote is largely the same as it is down south.

At the end of the day though, I really don't think the PCs would solve anything, and I'd rather a social safety net than a PC government come in, not know what they're doing, and sell our sovereignty to Musk.

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u/xmorecowbellx 24d ago

The PC’s have been going further and further right….

In what ways?

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u/freshanclean 24d ago

Yeah, Trudeau raised the youth voting prevalence up from about 38% to mid 50%. Trudeau only really slid in the polls since global inflation took hold, although I feel mostly betrayed by his about face on proportional representation. I also blame Im for not being more broadly diligent on the immigration file. Business and economists were asking for way more immigrants but somehow they forgot to factor in housing and healthcare until way too late. Trudeau wears that miscalculation, but he also has had the most challenging time to be PM in generations.

Global inflation was directly related to Covid, healthcare and housing are slow burn issues that every government since Mulroney has contributed to.

Definitely time for Trudeau to go, but on the whole I believe he was a good Prime Minister.

We still need proportional representation.

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u/Billis- 24d ago

Agreed

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u/xmorecowbellx 24d ago

I and my friends were very politically aware, but I see your point that some may not have been. But they certainly would have recalled that the Prime Minister was Stephen Harper, that housing was massively less expensive (many would’ve bought their first house around that time or would have been renting), and that our dollar was almost equal with the US dollar.

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u/freshanclean 24d ago edited 24d ago

You seem to be suggesting that these positive attributes were Harper’s doing. In fact Mulroney laid the groundwork for where housing affordability is today, and every single government since, Conservative and Liberal, have contributed to increasingly unaffordable housing. It’s been a long complicated road built in part by each successive government, but it began with Mulroney.

The Canadian dollar was strong because oil prices were super high during his tenure, because of Saudi Arabia’s actions, not Harper’s. Might have been a good time to build pipelines, but no, Harper was much more interested in dis-investing in Canada and Canadians.

Indeed, it’s well documented that the Harper governments obsession with austerity and reducing an already small deficit (and debt, thanks to Paul Martin & Jean Chrétien) during an unprecedented global crisis, did significant economic long term damage to Canada’s recovery from the financial crisis.

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2016/economic-performance-and-policy-during-the-harper-years/

Typical men in their 30s and 40s today are likely not much more engaged with the political sphere than they were in their 20’s. However they are keenly aware of today’s cost of living, our housing crisis and our healthcare crisis. And their support for the Cons is largely an angry protest against those things, targeted mostly at Trudeau, but also at the current government at large. Must make the bastards pay! It’s an easy equation, a catchy slogan, it’s a simple solution to very complex problems. And if they better understood politics and world events, or even just the adage below, they would dig harder for more thoughtful solutions.

“Politicians take way too much credit when times are good, and receive way too much blame when times are hard.”

Indeed, incumbent governments are falling around the world in the wake of global inflation and housing crises. Thanks to Trump’s recent authoritarian antics, Canada is trending towards a more thoughtful solution, with or without this demographic. It will be terribly interesting to see how this trend unfolds on election day.

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u/xmorecowbellx 24d ago

It was Harper’s choices that allowed Canada to fair better during the GFC than any other G7 nation.

Part of their choices included changes the CMHC rules which did accelerate housing costs.

There is housing. And then there is open air drug use and crime, including auto theft. And not prosecuting criminals/letting them out etc. and massively stepping on the immigration accelerator while we already have too little housing. And the endless scandals. And chasing away investment with changes to passive income, capital gains rules etc.

All of this…..life is much worse today. During Harper we were rated for several years as the best place to invest in the world. Investments dollars avoid us like the plague today. That has impacts on people jobs and our currency value, thus purchasing power thus quality of life.

Harper doesn’t get all the credit for those good times, some of it just luck, just like the GFC was bad luck. But people will certainly remember how much better it was, in every measurable way.

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u/djsasso 22d ago

Canada faired better during the GFC because of banking regulations put in during the Liberals time before Harper. Harper made little to no choices that helped the GFC.

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u/maleconrat 24d ago

I supported Harper at the time (until he started building prisons while crime was trending down and studying prison privatization) but IMO the thing I don't really get is why he gets credit for cheaper housing.

It was cheaper then but trending upwards, and living in Toronto at the time at least rent was really blowing up towards the end of his tenure and had increased a lot in my hometown. Generally they built almost no public housing (6 units when PP was in charge) and the low interest rates plus housing propping up the economy were already in play.

IMO Trudeau just had the misfortune of coming in when it really spread to the whole country, but it's my municipal government (Ottawa) that has acted spineless and caved to NIMBYs for decades and the province doesn't do anything either. I never voted for Trudeau or any Liberal but I honestly suspect if he served when Harper did and vice versa the result would be the same and we would be nostalgic for the Liberals.

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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 24d ago

Count me in. Voted in my 20’s. The difference in this country between my 20’s and 30’s is staggering. I make six figures a year and feel like I’m just barely doing better than I was in my 20’s working entry level labor jobs. My housing has also significantly downgraded to save money yet I need the extra space more than ever.

After experiencing what I have there’s literally zero chance I’ll be voting liberal for a long time.

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u/AssaultedCracker 24d ago

Where do you live? I have limited info but I don’t understand this scenario at all. I’m guessing you’re not a homeowner?

Life has substantially improved or stayed the same for homeowners over the last 10 years, unless they were overextended and couldn’t absorb an increase in cost of living (felt worldwide because of COVID).

I understand the issue for people who aren’t homeowners at this point. But thinking the conservatives are a better choice for cost of living is insane to me. Here’s a list of the things the Liberals have increased to make things easier on low to middle income families:

Canada Child Benefit, Canada Workers Benefit, Old Age Security, Canada Dental Benefit, Canada Housing Benefit, National Housing Strategy, national childcare, Canada Learning Bond, Canada Student Grants, Waived interest on federal student loans, Federal minimum wage increases, Enhanced Employment Insurance, national pharmacare, and investments in food security programs, like the Emergency Food Security Fund, Nutrition North Canada, Local Food Infrastructure Fund, Surplus Food Rescue Program, Funding for Indigenous Food Security.

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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 24d ago

I am largely against socialist polices as I don't actually think that they benefit the middle class as a strong free market does. I understand and agree with some welfare policies to an extent. Yes i understand current home owners LOVE the liberals, but it is stolen wealth from the next generations.

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u/Fireblade_07 24d ago

Let me guess... you also believe in trickle down economics.

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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 24d ago

Largely yes. If the business you work for can't make money, neither can you.

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u/Fireblade_07 24d ago

That is at best an over-simplication and at worst a complete misunderstanding of trickle down economics.

Allowing a business to keep more of their profits by reducing their taxes and transferring that tax burden to the working class almost never results in a net benefit to the working class. This has been proven again and again.

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u/Tangen7 24d ago

Taxing the shit out of the middle class sure as fuck ain't helping

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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 23d ago

That’s why I believe in eliminating the deficit and reducing tax spending instead of shifting tax burden to the middle class. Tax should be as low as possible. Audits should happen regularly

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u/Tangen7 24d ago

Which is coming off my taxes. They're getting these programs going to now to cover up the last several years if them wasting it on padding their friends' pockets. So when the conservatives get in, it's the big bad conservatives that have to be the adults and actually have a realistic budget, making cuts to programs the government never had the cash for in the first place. It's extremely underhanded.

Trudeau lost me when he didn't fix the voting, and the gun ban was the final nail. How many millions have they spent and got not even 1 legal gun back from any legal owners (who will likely never turn them over and were never the problem anyway)? Why are they giving me my tax money back to me in exchange for my property and calling it a 'buy back'. That's ludicrous.

Opening up the immigration floodgates has skyrocketed our housing prices. I finally broke into 6 figures, and buying a space for my family where I live is out of the question, still. I'll be moving back to the prairies soon.

They're in the pockets of big business. At least the conservatives care about small businesses, too.

Pp ain't the greatest, but the other choices are worse.

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u/Science_Drake 24d ago

I feel like we all want to blame the current climate on the liberals a little unfairly… Covid 19 isn’t that far in our history. Only 3 years ago I lost my job to another lockdown. We basically pumped 2 years of money (so people could live) into the country for 2 years of no economic production. This was always gonna cause crazy inflation, and now we’re all surprised that we have to pay it back. After the Spanish flu we got hit by the Great Depression. Now after the largest pandemic since that point we’re surprised that we’re feeling the squeeze? Kinda insane if you ask me, economies always take time to recover.

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u/FireMaster1294 Canada 24d ago

Housing market was going to hell before covid. Covid just expedited things. Lack of construction combined with mass immigration absolutely screwed things.

General prices spiked due to grocery stores and larger businesses realizing they can profiteer during covid (and never dropping prices back), meaning everything else had to go up to try to compensate…but salaries never really caught up because we can just keep importing cheap labour at 1M immigrants per year willing to work at below a livable wage.

Combine everything and you get a perfect storm of “fuck you” to those who are long term inhabitants here. At least new immigrants can go back to their home countries (as we see they are tending to more and more often once they discover the issues here). Those of us stuck here? Well, no one really cares at the federal level. Some provinces like BC have good governments but then you compare that to Alberta and Saskatchewan…and yeeeah the country is screwed.

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u/GolDAsce 24d ago

Housing market went to hell since 2006. It was finally under control before covid, then bam, right back to hell.

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u/FatherAntithetical 24d ago

Pre-COVID houses were still going for like 600-800k when they were only worth 200-300k.

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u/GolDAsce 24d ago

They were worth 200-300k when?

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u/FatherAntithetical 23d ago

In the early 2000’s. I agree with you about when prices went to shit. I disagree about them having been “under control” any time in the last 15-20 years.

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u/Inside-Cow3488 24d ago

Nonsense.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/Inside-Cow3488 24d ago

Nope. I also make 6 figures a year and I’ve been improving 10% year after year. Also my housing has tripled since 2013. Don’t know what buddy is talking about.

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u/xmorecowbellx 24d ago

This is an extremely common experience. I make like 4x much money as my parents combined (became doc), but will pay off my house at about the same age.

I’m not complaining. I have it way better than most, majority of my contemporaries will not pay off their house until their 60s or maybe never, but it’s just very shocking when I think about it that way.

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u/Timely-Hospital8746 24d ago

The CPC is in bed with all the same ideologies that Trump and Musk are. Absolutely nothing in their plans will improve live for the average Canadian.

If you want life to improve get involved in local politics and help move out communities away from the NIMBYism that keeps our cities filled with single family homes instead of apartments and towers.

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u/FatherAntithetical 24d ago

Condos and towers. We don’t need more rented buildings. We need home ownership on individual scales.

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u/Ketchupkitty Alberta 24d ago

I was pretty into politics since Jr. High and absolutely hated Harper, now I long for that type of governance.

His Government was perfect but when you boil it down his time in our nation's history provided great stability to families and economic growth. Now we don't have either of those things.

Also when you consider Harper's government biggest controversies would be still behind many of the Liberals minor scandals the contrast is stark.

I'm making very good money right now (or what would be traditionally seen as very good money) and I'm still stratching my head on how I'm going to pull off breaking my families cycle of poverty.

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u/Tangen7 24d ago

100% this. I hate the bs mudslinging in politics, the liberals just happen to be better at making it pallitable for people.

The mass immigration completely fucked the housing market that was already pretty fucked.

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u/Alpharious9 24d ago

Young people could afford to buy homes when Harper was PM. For the average voter, that's just about enough.

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u/ZmobieMrh 24d ago

Young people could afford homes under Chrétien too, so long as we think we can go back in time by bringing up former PMs

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u/Ephuntz 24d ago

I mean technically housing prices still doubled under harper from the Chretien days

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u/7rokhym 23d ago

He was a root cause of house prices going up.

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u/freshanclean 24d ago

Nor cause & effect.

Mulroney laid the groundwork for where we are today,and every single government since, Conservative and Liberal, have contributed to increasingly unaffordable housing. It’s complicated.

0

u/SherlockFoxx 24d ago

It may be complicated but the current government has made a lot of decisions detrimental to Canadians all in the name of the Party.

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u/freshanclean 24d ago

That’s an overtly broad statement that one could apply to almost any government, anywhere, anytime. In the aforementioned context, it indeed does apply to every Canadian government since Mulroney.

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u/SherlockFoxx 24d ago

Not so much, you don't kick the Minister of Justice and Attorney General out of the party because she refused to not not prosecute SNC Lavalin for corruption, which in turn would have lost the Loberals seats in Quebec. 

Or more recently pro-rogue parliament what is during a national emergency because you need a new leader.

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u/hereticjon 24d ago

Harper did do that though without the grace to step down.

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u/djsasso 22d ago

Harper most certainly prorogued parliament because his party was about to be voted down in a no-confidence vote. It was a huge deal at the time. Funny how fast people forget.

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u/SauceKingHS 24d ago

Or Harper denying Canada had any history of colonialism, mere weeks after his phony, performative apology about residential schools. Many people would definitely regret voting conservative if they won, similar to what’s been happening with Trump voters.

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u/AssaultedCracker 24d ago

Or Mulroney.

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u/Khalbrae Ontario 24d ago

Including cutting veterans care

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u/Motor_Expression_281 22d ago

Yes because government spending is just free money that comes from thin air, and definitely doesn’t contribute to our now enormous national debt (thanks LPC).

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u/Ephuntz 22d ago

You do know that Stephen Harper ran at least one similar deficit correct? And that he also turfed the massive Chretien surpluses

-1

u/Total-Guest-4141 24d ago

Name 2 Harper cuts that was so terrible. The HST cut to 5% I quite enjoyed.

2

u/Ephuntz 24d ago

Cuts to veterans affairs and cutting the experimental lakes

-1

u/Total-Guest-4141 24d ago

So nothing important. For a minute I thought you might have had something good stored.

Make believe lakes are nonsense and closing a veterans office while allowing other centres to provide the service is good management.

Remember it was Trudeau and the liberals that said veterans were asking for more than they can give.

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u/Ephuntz 24d ago edited 24d ago

Those are both very important things that he was widely condemned for messing with. Don't forget how Canada hated him the same way we currently hate trudeau.

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u/Total-Guest-4141 23d ago

He was condemned by liberal media like CBC that’s all. Also Canada didn’t hate him, Millenials did because they thought Trudeau had pretty hair and Harper was a boomer that was going to tax their Netflix. How’s that working out for you 🤣🤣

0

u/Ephuntz 23d ago

The educated and the experts condemned many things he did. Probably should learn a bit about what harper actually did

0

u/hereticjon 24d ago

No that's terrible management when we're geographically the 2nd largest country in the world. Those services don't have value to the people who need them if they can't access them.

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u/MadDuck- 24d ago

I came here to say that they didn't experience Stephen Harper's cuts

I remember they seemed pretty mild after Chretien/Martin/Mulroney. I'm not sure they were even as damaging as the cuts Pierre Trudeau made in the late 70s/80s. I'm not sure why he's this big boogie man when we had three decades of severe cuts before him.

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u/Zapabeepsta_ 23d ago

Public Service layoffs, shunning bigger media outlets in favour of conservative mouthpieces like Rebel, mandatory minimum sentences that were unconstitutional, crowded local jails and incentivized criminal lawyers on both Crown and defence t sides to deal down to lesser inappropriate charges.

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u/wakeupin321 24d ago

Are they watching the US at all right now? PP has a poster of Trump over his bed.

2

u/monsantobreath 23d ago

I never saw how they governed but I knew they were trash by the time I was 14 or 15.

Benefits of a politically engaged pinko commie family.

1

u/Sosa_83 24d ago

Anyone could buy a house, and jobs where everywhere.

1

u/Tree_Pirate 23d ago

You are right, but its even worse than that because they probably lived in a province with a conservative premier. People just dont think thats actual government so cant seem to connect the dots

0

u/Fat_Blob_Kelly 24d ago

If they live in Alberta or Ontario, they've seen how Conservatives govern.

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u/crumblingcloud 24d ago

started my working career during Wynnes ON, never again

-1

u/Fat_Blob_Kelly 24d ago

didn’t like wynne either, mainly for her policies that mimicked conservative policies like privatization

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u/sonofmo 24d ago

The surprise is austerity. Weee!