Thursday, June 17, 2010

How Out of Touch is the Liberal Leader You Ask

Today Nik Nanos released his latest poll identifying what Canadians think their top priorities are. Here are the short strokes:

Methodology
Nanos conducted a random telephone survey of 1,008 Canadians, 18 years of age and older, between May 29th and June 3rd, 2010. A survey of 1,008 Canadians is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.

Top Issue Question: What is your most important NATIONAL issue of concern? [unprompted] (The numbers in parentheses denote the change in the Nanos National Omnibus surveys between May and June, 2010.)

National (n=1,008)

Top Five Issues

Healthcare: 23.1% (+0.3)
Jobs/economy: 19.2% (+0.6)
The environment: 12.6% (+1.8)
High taxes: 5.3% (-0.1)
Education: 2.5% (-2.9)

Health Care You Ask? Well, the Toronto Star just happens to be writing about the Liberal Leader's vacancy on the issue just this morning as luck should have it.

On June 17, his group will host a meeting on Parliament Hill for politicians of all parties to discuss the long-term viability of medicare. Some 40 MPs and senators have indicated they will attend.


But Ignatieff isn’t expected to be among them. Once again, the Liberal leader will be missing in action when it comes to health care. It’s a pattern that disturbs medicare proponents. Just last weekend, for example, Ignatieff led a daylong Liberal policy meeting in Toronto, but health care wasn’t even on the agenda, though it was discussed briefly in at least one of the sessions.

For medicare supporters, the key question is whether the party that introduced universal health care in the 1960s will be there to defend it in the future. Under Ignatieff, the answer is unclear.


Notice that the Nanos Poll doesn't identify leaving our troops in Afghanistan or traveling to India or China? (although some could argue that falls under the category of the Economy I suppose)

But, for Liberals, not all polls are bad.

4 comments:

Radical Centrist said...

Two of those are distinctly provincial responsibilities. High taxes is also somewhat vague - the Cons have cut federal taxes quite a bit, so i would think this is more of a provincial gripe as well (HST in ON and BC, increased HST in NS, increased PST in QC, etc.). Which really just leaves the economy and the environment - and even the economy has a strong provincial component to it. Not sure what you expect any federal leader to do in those areas - the provinces don't like dictates from Ottawa on how they should handle things like education and health (other than "give us more $$$$$!!!!")

The Mound of Sound said...

Do you think someone can convince MI to stay in India? How out of touch was he when Harper first prorogued Parliament while a global economic meltdown overtook the country? Did he take the time to come up with a Liberal proposal for a stimulus budget - or did he instead choose to put the finishing touches on a book about his mother's family? If that didn't tell us this guy was out of touch, everything he hasn't done since then should come as no suprise.

James Curran said...

Isn't there some kind of federal legislation called the Canada Health Act? Or maybe that's just a provincial thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Health_Act

Anonymous said...

Bullseye Jim! Before we get to his magic 2017 - we pass 2014 - when the current funding for the big push on Health care runs out!
Ask Mr. Romanow whether he thinks the major recommendations of his 2003 final report have all been implemented? Ask Duncan Sinclair who did a parallel study for Ontario (Dr. Sinclair wrote a book - the Third Rail - lamenting what Mike Harris and Co. did with his recommendations!) but DON'T ask Dr. Keith Martin - who appears to be closer to Mr. Ignatieff than his official health critic Dr. Carolyn Bennett - because Dr. Martin would privatize everything! But what would you expect from someone who was once a Reform party member!

Wascally Wabbit