Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland's office did not provide a comment on Monday when asked if she is considering a run for Liberal leadership.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney are more popular choices to lead the Liberal Party than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to a new Nanos survey conducted exclusively for The Globe and Mail.
Eighteen per cent of respondents said Ms. Freeland, the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, was the most appealing potential candidate for Liberal leader. Mr. Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, came in at 15 per cent.
Mr. Trudeau has been Liberal Leader since 2013 and Prime Minister since 2015. He polled at just 9 per cent in the same survey.
Almost a quarter of respondents said they found none of the listed candidates appealing and 19 per cent said they were unsure.
Other possible leadership contenders were Treasury Board President Anita Anand, who got 5 per cent, and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, at 4 per cent. Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Housing Minister Sean Fraser and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc each got 2 per cent.
Respondents were provided a list of possible contenders to choose from and were asked: Which of the following potential candidates for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada is the most politically appealing to you?
No custom component found for subtype: oovvuu-video
The latest indicator on Mr. Trudeau’s poor popularity is all the more significant because the survey results show he is performing worse than people who have less name recognition than him, said Nanos Research founder Nik Nanos.
“There’s an appetite for change, not just in the government, but people would like to see change within the Liberal Party,” Mr. Nanos said.
Ms. Freeland has long been touted as a possible leadership contender. Her office did not provide a comment on Monday when asked if she is considering it but instead pointed to an interview Ms. Freeland did with CTV News.
Asked if she was interested in leading the Liberal Party, Ms. Freeland did not directly answer, instead saying she was “focused first and foremost on supporting Canadians” and backs Mr. Trudeau.
In November, Mr. Carney told The Globe he hasn’t ruled out a bid for the top Liberal job.
The same survey also shows Mr. Trudeau slipping significantly in the preferred next prime minister category. Separate Nanos polling shows the governing Liberals significantly behind the opposition Conservatives in ballot support.
In July, Mr. Trudeau was still the preferred next prime minister among 46 per cent of respondents, while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre came in at 30 per cent. However, the new polling shows the two statistically tied for preferred prime minister, at 37 per cent for Mr. Poilievre, and 36 per cent for Mr. Trudeau.
The remaining 27 per cent of respondents said they preferred neither leader or were unsure.
In the same survey, 55 per cent of respondents also said that they wanted the Liberals to have a different leader in the next election, while 19 per cent said they want Mr. Trudeau to remain. Twenty-seven per cent said they had no preference or were unsure.
The survey results show a six percentage point drop in support for Mr. Trudeau since December, 2022.
A significant portion of respondents, 46 per cent, also did not want Mr. Poilievre to lead the Conservative Party. However, more wanted him to stay on as leader, at 32 per cent, then want Mr. Trudeau to stay on as Liberal leader. Twenty-two per cent said they had no preference or were unsure.
The numbers are in line with how he has polled since December, 2022, suggesting that the Conservative Party’s significant ad campaign has done little to change opinion of their leader, said Mr. Nanos.
“It’s not an embrace and a massive endorsement of Pierre Poilievre, and the Conservatives, it’s more of a rejection of the Liberals and Justin Trudeau.”
Still, “people are forced to choose from whatever is on the menu,” Mr. Nanos said, and the broader ballot polling shows the Conservatives still holding a double-digit lead over the Liberals.
The Opposition Leader has largely focused his attacks on the government on the affordability crunch and tied it in part to the federal consumer carbon pricing.
On that policy, the Nanos survey asked respondents if it was a good time or bad time to increase the carbon tax. Seventy per cent said it was either very poor or poor timing to increase it, while just 12 per cent said it was a good or very good. Another 15 per cent said it was an average time and 3 per cent were unsure.
The hybrid phone and online surveys on carbon pricing and preferred leaders had 1,069 respondents and were conducted between Nov. 30 and Dec. 2.
The margin of error for the surveys is three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.