Liberal push to make elections a referendum on the pandemic was only partially successful – CityNews Toronto

Four in 10 Canadians polled in a recent online poll say their vote is being influenced by how they feel the federal government handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

The poll, conducted by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies, comes as leaders are giving their last push toward Election Day.

Association president Jack Jedwab says the Liberals really wanted this vote to be about their handling of COVID-19, and for some that’s the case.

The survey cannot be given a margin of error because online surveys are not considered a random sample of the population.

But among the 1,549 Canadians surveyed, 60 percent said they were satisfied with Ottawa’s COVID-19 response, and 40 percent said the response was influencing their vote.

But Jedwab says the answer to the pandemic is not as pervasive a question at the polls as liberal leader Justin Trudeau wanted.

He says it has become one of several issues people are looking at when marking their ballots, including childcare, the economy, Afghanistan and weapons.

The survey shows that voters in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and British Columbia are extremely satisfied with the way their provincial governments responded to COVID-19, but in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and especially Alberta, satisfaction with the provincial governments is very low.

Jedwab says that is making Conservative leader Erin O “Toole’s job a bit more difficult as she tries to distance herself from the conservative prime ministers in those provinces, while Trudeau goes to great lengths to link him with those leaders and their policies.

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Trudeau maintains a grueling schedule on the last day of the campaign with multiple in-person and virtual events in all provinces except Saskatchewan.

O’Toole keeps up with two events in the greater Toronto area.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has seven events scheduled in British Columbia, the province he adopted as his home after taking command from the new federal Democrats.

Polls open Monday at 9:30 am and results are normally expected to take shape later that night. But Elections Canada warned Sunday that it may take up to four days to finish counting all mail-in ballots and other special ballots sent in this election.