Libs, PCs All Tied Up in Scarborough-Rouge River

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Libs, PCs All Tied Up in Scarborough-Rouge River

NDP in close 2nd place

In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 363 voters in the provincial riding of Scarborough-Rouge River two days before the scheduled by-election in this riding, there is an exact tie between the Progressive Conservative candidate, Raymond Cho, with just more than a third of the vote (36%), and the Liberal candidate, Piragal Thiru, with the same vote share (36%). The NDP candidate, Neethan Shan, comes in a close second with just less than a quarter of the vote (23%). Few will vote the Green candidate, Priyan Da Silva (1%).



The PC candidate is the preferred choice of almost half those who disapprove of the new Ontario sex education curriculum (44%), while the opposite apples to the Liberal candidate, who has close to half the support of those who support the curriculum (43%).

Of note, more than one quarter of those who voted Liberal in 2014 will vote PC this time (26%) and close to a fifth will vote NDP (17%), leaving just one half of these former Liberal partisans voting the same party this time (54%).

Split opinion on sex education curriculum

Relatively equal proportions of the voters on Scarborough-Rouge River approve of (39%), disapprove of (36%) or don’t have an opinion on the new Ontario sex education curriculum (26%). Just one quarter of PC voters approve (27%), close to half of Liberals approve (46%) and more than half of New Democrats approve of this curriculum (55%).


“What we see here is a classic Mexican stand-off; the Liberal and Progressive Conservative candidates have each carved out an equal sized patch of the popular vote and the hill they’re fighting for is the vote that swings on the sex education curriculum” said Forum Research President, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff.

Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416) 960-9603.