Polls suggest Ignatieff might have little choice but to ask voters to look to the future, since they show little sign of being inclined to punish Harper for the hardships of the present. Recent polls show the Liberals at best running about even with the Tories; some have them well behind. Early this week, a Strategic Counsel poll put the Liberals five points back, at 30 per cent of national support, compared to the Conservatives’ 35 per cent. If that edge holds up, Harper will be in a strong position when it comes to bargaining with the NDP or Bloc Québécois for the support in the House he’d need to thwart the expected Liberal bid to defeat his government this month or next.
That the governing party appears to be enjoying a polling lead is remarkable at a time when the latest unemployment figures show joblessness at a 10-year high of 8.7 per cent. Then again, those new unemployment numbers also show that the economy created more jobs than it shed in August. The private sector added 49,200 employees, after 11 straight months of subtracting workers. When it comes to perceptions of the economy, everything is relative: Canadians who were warned to brace for a depression might well shrug off Drummond’s “garden-variety deep recession.” Which leaves politicians who were only a few months ago planning for a recession-driven election plotting unexpected strategies for a far less predictable campaign.
