So, last week, I was speculating on the basis of the Ekos poll whether or not the Conservatives had recovered from their Summer swoon in the polls over a myriad of issues that had reflected negatively on them, and also whether or not the Ignatieff summer tour had helped him and his Liberal Party recover some polling #’s and a more positive impression of Ignatieff.

There’s a new Harris-Decima poll released today (editor note: this past Friday as of now). For the Conservatives, it appears their #’s have stagnated, and they have not yet shook off the summer blahs. For the Liberals, there are contradictory answers: Ignatieff’s leadership #’s are still not showing any signs of improvement, but paradoxically, his party has risen since the last Harris-Decima poll taken over 2 weeks ago.

The latest H-D national standings currently are:

Conservatives 33% (-1)
Liberals 30% (+2)
NDP 16% (+1)
Greens 10% (-2)

In Quebec, the BQ continues to lead, but their lead had diminished slightly: 37% (-2), with the Liberals having recovered to a solid 28% (+3). Rounding out the other parties is the Conservatives at 15% (+1), the Greens at 10% (+3), and the NDP sliding down to last place at 9% (-3). The rest of the regionals you can grab at the Winnipeg Free Press, as this latest poll is not yet up at the H-D website as of the blogpost writing.

So your conclusion of this poll from me is that the Conservatives are still feeling the effects of such things as the Census (which are back in the spotlight again with the resumption of Parliamentary committee hearings) giving them a hit on their popularity, due to Canadians feeling uneasy about the right-wing ideology coming in open view. Meanwhile, they’re still not exactly warming to the Liberal leader, but they’re at least giving his party a 2nd look see. A good performance in the the next Parliamentary session, + some strong stances on core issues may help turn that around a bit more.

This new AngusReid poll mostly corroborates another recent one in finding more than half of Canadians to be opposed to current military action in Afghanistan. The poll is worth noting, however, because it holds the Canadian results in comparison to findings in the United Kingdom and United States as well.

In basic support or opposition of the war, the UK stands with Canada, with just over half of respondents from each country opposing the war, with a sizable minority (43% for Canada and 39% for Britain) supporting it. Americans show much clearer support of the war, with 55 % supporting it and 35% opposed.

In whether people believe troops should have gone into Afghanistan to begin with, Canada falls almost exactly in between the US and the UK; roughly equal numbers of Canadian respondents support and oppose the beginning of the mission, with 20% not sure. 53% of UK respondents think going in was a mistake (10% more than Canadians), while 49% of Americans think going in was the right thing to do (11% more than Canadians).

Finally, and most interestingly, respondents were asked whether or not they would support negotiation with the Taliban in order to establish peace in Afghanistan. Canada and the US appear to agree on this issue: only a third of respondents from either country would support these negotiations, as opposed to the near half of UK respondents who would. More than half of the Canadians would particularly oppose these negotiations, however, significantly more than the Americans (44%) or British (37%).

For many in the Canadian political sphere, poll-watching is a bit of an obsession. Trends and patterns are looked for from week to week and attempts are made  to analyze any subtle shift in the electorate. This will be such an attempt here by myself (Scott Tribe) on Thursday’s release of the latest Ekos poll.

On first look, it appears that the Conservatives – at least in this specific pollster’s poll – have recovered slightly from their drop this past summer.  I would assert most of that is self-inflicted from the curious (and in my opinion, dumb) decision to gut the mandatory long-form Census, and the resulting (and continuing) uproar.  They’ve crept back to a 4.6% lead nationally over the Liberals, where last week they only led by a little over 1%.

A digging into the regional numbers shows it a little less clear-cut then that; it appears we have a very big regional gap for the government’s support. From Manitoba west, the Conservatives would win a crushing majority government, if those provinces were the only ones voting (doesn’t Stephen Harper wish!). On the other hand, if you look at the numbers for Ontario heading east, the Liberals don’t fare too badly; they’ve actually jumped ahead in Ontario, and still lead the Conservatives in the Maritimes (though not by such a whopping margin as last week’s Ekos poll – the smaller size sample there may have been an outlier, as the margin of error there is 7%).

One thing that is also striking about this poll; the Liberals have actually gained an increase of university educated voters inclined to vote for them – up to the 34-35% range.  This again seems to point to the fact those folks are rather disturbed by the Conservatives turning a Census based on statistical and scientific methods in gathering data to one whose voluntary nature will skew data badly and make it unreliable. They may also be disturbed at other things, such as Stockwell Day’s claim that the Conservatives big expenditures on building new prisons was justified, despite StatsCan showing the crime rate having declined the past few years, because “unreported crime” was up.  A government which bases its policies on hunches, ideology and assertions rather then facts, data and reliable statistics  wouldn’t go over well with this group.

Where does that leave us? Well, according to this site, you’d have a reduced Conservative minority in an election, if those numbers were to translate over and hold in a hypothetical election – a bigger potpourri of parties numbers then we have now.

Again, this is based on one poll from one specific pollster, but we’ll see in the leadup to the Fall Session whether or not the Conservatives can recover any ground lost from their stumbling summer, or if they continue to have problems, and the Liberals under Igantieff can build on their relatively successful “Liberal Express” tour and have numbers confident enough to pull the plug (or try to) on the Conservative government.

Both Canadians and Americans feel that their governments are ignoring the environment, a recent Angus Reid poll has found. A majority of Canadian (66 per cent) and American (53 per cent) respondents feel that their federal governments are paying too little attention to the environment. A total of 40 per cent of Britons feel the same way.

Most Canadians (80 per cent) and Americans (72 per cent) place the pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs as their biggest environmental concern, while deforestation and the clearing of naturally occurring forests ranks the highest for Britons (67 per cent).

The Queen’s visit has improved support for the monarchy, a recent Angus Reid poll has found. In the survey of 1,022 Canadian adults, 36 per cent (up three per cent from a similar poll in May) are in favour of remaining a monarchy, while 30 per cent (down six per cent) would like to have an elected head of state.

Despite all the hype leading up to last month’s G8 and G20 summits, few Canadians, Americans and Britons paid attention to what their respective countries have promised as a result. A recent Angus Reid poll has found that only 23 per cent of Canadians followed the results “very closely” or “moderately closely”, along with 20 per cent of Americans and 19 per cent of Britons. It’s interesting to note, however, that over half of Canadians (52 per cent) followed the stories relating to the G8/G20 demonstrations in Toronto, along with 21 per cent of Americans and 16 per cent of Britons.

Meanwhile, another poll has found that Canadians want the federal government to pay for the damage made during the G20 demonstrations. An Angus Reid poll of 1,003 Canadian adults reported that 80 per cent of Canadians (and 90 per cent of Torontonians) feel the Canadian government should compensate businesses that were damaged or forced to close during the G20 summit. Additionally, 66 per cent of Canadians (and 73 per cent of Torontonians) believe that the police were justified in responding the way they did during the demonstrations.

When it comes to the origin of the human race, Canadians and Britons tend to have differing opinions than Americans, a recent Angus Reid poll has found. The majority of Canadians (61 per cent) and Britons (68 per cent) believe in evolution, while 47 per cent of Americans believe that God created human beings in their present form.

The majority of Canadians are resistant to the recent proposal to change or amend the name of Stanley Park in Vancouver, an Angus Reid poll has revealed. It has been proposed that the name of the park be changed to Xwayxway (pronounced “kwhy-kway”), which was the name of an Aboriginal village that was located inside what is now Stanley Park. Of the 1,009 Canadian adults polled, 61 per cent (and 73 per cent of British Columbians) believe that Stanley Park should keep its name, 23 per cent think the two names should be paired together and six per cent believe the name should be changed to Xwayxway.

Canadians want the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to release the names of politicians who are supposedly influenced by foreign governments, an Angus Reid poll has found. Over two-thirds of the 1,009 Canadians surveyed (67 per cent) feel that the names should be made public, after claims made by CSIS Director Richard Fadden that at least two provincial cabinet ministers and several BC municipal politicians “are under at leas tthe general influence of a foreign government.”

Optimism in the Canadian economy has gone down recently, a Nanos poll has found. When asked whether they think the economy will become stronger, weaker or have no change in the next six months, 39.4 per cent (down 4.5 per cent from a recent poll) of the 1,008 Canadian adults surveyed responded that they felt it would get stronger, 15.5 per cent (up 1.5 per cent) felt it would get weaker and 40.9 per cent (up 2.8 per cent) felt that there would be no change.

The Conservative Party is still holding on to the top spot in federal politics, according to Angus Reid’s recent poll on voting intentions. Of the 2,031 Canadian adults polled, 36 per cent give their support to the Conservatives, while 27 per cent support the Liberal Party. Third place goes to the New Democratic Party (20 per cent support), followed by the Bloc Québécois (10 per cent) and the Green Party (seven per cent).