Majority
calls for coalition if Conservative minority elected
Three quarters of NDP, Liberal voters agree
TORONTO June 16th,
2015 - In a
random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 1281 Canadian
voters, the majority (53%) would support a Liberal/NDP coalition government if
the next election resulted in a Conservative minority. Among Liberal and NDP
voters, as many as three quarters call for a cooperative government of the
centre/left (75% and 76%, respectively) and even one tenth of Conservative
voters agree (12%). A coalition government is especially popular among the
wealthiest (59%), the youngest (56%) and the best educated (65%).
Should
the election result in a Liberal minority or an NDP minority, there is much
less interest in coalition governments between the remaining two parties
(NDP/Conservative coalition - 23%, Liberal/Conservative coalition - 22%). A
Conservative/NDP coalition attracts a third of Conservatives (35%) and a
quarter of New Democrats (25%). A Liberal/Conservative coalition attracts
almost 4-in-10 Conservatives (39%) and almost 3-in-10 Liberals (28%). Interest
in an NDP/Liberal coalition has increased in the past two weeks, while interest
in the other two pairings has declined.
Majority sees a coalition as an appropriate form of government
in a minority
More
than a half of voters continue to view coalition governments as appropriate if
no party has a majority (58%), and this hasn’t changed in several weeks (57%
and 58% previously). Conservatives (33%) are far less likely to see coalitions
as legitimate than either Liberals (72%) or New Democrats (75%). Coalitions are
especially well-accepted in the Atlantic (63%), the prairies (61%) and in BC
(62%).
"The key here is which side of
the minority you end up on. The Liberal and New Democrat voters both find
coalition appropriate and want to enter into one with each other in the event
of a Conservative minority, but Conservatives are wary of cooperative government,
perhaps because they know they are no one’s preferred partner. Our previous
polling has shown that many Conservative voters actually view coalition as
illegitimate," 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.
