Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected calls from some Liberal MPs last month who urged him to step down as leader before the next election. Trudeau holds a closing news conference following the APEC summit in Lima, Peru on Nov. 16.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
A new poll shows a majority of Canadians say the Liberal Party should be led by someone other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the next election, with only 24 per cent saying he should stay on.
The Nanos Research survey conducted for The Globe and Mail asked whether Mr. Trudeau should lead the Liberals in the next election or whether the party should choose someone else.
Fifty-seven per cent said someone else should be leader. Fifteen per cent said they had no preference, and 4 per cent said they were unsure.
Mr. Trudeau rejected calls from some Liberal MPs last month who urged him to step down as leader before the next election, which must take place before late October, 2025.
The percentage of Canadians who said the Liberals should choose a new leader is up from 55 per cent in response to two surveys conducted in 2023 and 51 per cent when the question was asked in December, 2022.
Nanos Research founder Nik Nanos said there is more troubling news for Mr. Trudeau: The survey found there’s been a spike in the percentage of Canadians who say their personal financial situation has worsened over the past year.
Forty-one per cent of respondents felt that way, up from 28 per cent in response to a similar question in August, 2021.
The most recent survey, which was conducted between Nov. 4 and 6, had 21 per cent of respondents saying they were better off and 37 per cent saying there had been no change in their financial situation.
Responding to voter anxiety over economic concerns and the cost of living will be top of mind for the government when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland releases a fall economic update in the near future. The date has not yet been announced, but such reports are typically released in November or December.
A fall update can be used to foreshadow announcements in a spring budget, which could be the trigger for the next federal election in light of the current political dynamic on Parliament Hill.
Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party continues to trail the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, in Nanos’s tracking of voting intentions, with support for the Conservatives at 41 per cent, followed by the Liberals at 25 per cent and the NDP at 19 per cent.
Mr. Nanos said negative voter sentiment about personal finances is generally bad news for incumbent governments, pointing to the recent U.S. election that saw Republican candidate Donald Trump win after a raft of surveys indicating Americans were feeling worse off financially.
“I think we’re in a similar type of situation,” he said. “It’s hard for a government to fight that.”
The Nanos findings are similar to those in a recent Environics Institute survey that found the proportion of Canadians who feel they’re financially worse off than their parents’ generation is the highest it has ever been.
Canadians have endured several years of economic disruptions, as the pandemic-related shutdowns of 2020 and 2021 were followed by the highest inflation in 40 years. That prompted a series of interest-rate hikes that the Bank of Canada has only recently started to unwind.
The global economic turmoil has been followed by several examples of voters around the world replacing incumbent governments of various partisan stripes.
But Mr. Trudeau has also faced criticism over some of his government’s key economic decisions, such as approving significantly higher levels of immigration without ensuring the housing market could absorb the increased demand.
Mr. Poilievre’s rise to front-runner status has coincided with his steady focus on Mr. Trudeau’s climate-change policies and their associated costs for consumers.
Another survey question asked people what they thought would be the best way for the Liberals to increase their chances of winning the next election, offering six options.
Having someone other than Mr. Trudeau lead the party was the top choice, at 38 per cent, followed by the 30 per cent who said nothing will increase their chances. Focusing more on economic issues was selected by 18 per cent of respondents, followed by 5 per cent who said continuing with the party’s current policy priorities. Only 3 per cent said having Mr. Trudeau lead the party in the next election would improve their prospects, while 6 per cent said they were unsure.
The responses were gathered as part of an omnibus survey of 1,010 adults, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Mr. Nanos said the results suggest Mr. Trudeau and the Liberals will need to present new ideas if they want to improve their standing with Canadians.
“I think what the research suggests is if the Liberals want to fight on their record, they’ve already lost the election,” he said.