Canada’s next election will be a battle of the disliked vs. the hated

CLIP You’re listening to a frequency podcast network production in association with City News.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings It is obviously no shock in a polarized political climate, that a whole lot of Canadians dislike Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

CLIP A year ago today, Ukrainians woke up.”

CLIPPersonally, I want Trudeau and whoever’s pulling Trudeau’s strings pulled Dawn out of Canada. I don’t.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Trudeau has been around for almost a decade now, and he’s been in power for most of that time, and every leader who lasts that long has lots of detractors. What is surprising, though, is just how much the people who hate him, hate him, and who those people. Meanwhile, his chief opponent, the next time Canadians go to the polls is a man who has not yet led his party into even one election. But still, lots of people hate him too. And the demographics of the people who dislike these two leaders are so starkly different. That it offers us a picture of this country as a nation divided by political affiliation, by geography, and even by gender. I am Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story. David Coletto is the CEO of polling firm, Abacus Data, and a professor of political management at Carleton University. Hello David.

David Coletto Hi Jordan.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings I wanna have a bit of a long-term look at the federal politics, uh, horse race. And you’ve done some really interesting deep dives into, uh, who likes, and more importantly, I guess, who dislikes Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poll. And my first question is just over the last little while when you kind of zoom out, uh, how have the favorables and unfavorables for both these leaders been tracking?

David Coletto Well, for, for the Prime Minister, for Mr. Trudeau, really, it’s been almost 10 years since he became liberal leader. I mean, if you go back to 2015 when he was first elected Prime Minister, there was, you know, pretty broad and deep affection. Uh, for Justin Trudeau. I think he represented. A change from Steven Harper. He was hopeful, optimistic, and I think the country was really in a, a place for the most part, that, that wanted that. Mm-hmm. But then over time, as with I think any political leader, you start making decisions, you start backtracking on some of the promises you, you made, and those negatives start to rise and the, the positives go down. And, you know, I think for, for most of the last seven years that, that Justin Trudeau has been Prime Minister. You’ve had about equal numbers who have a positive and negative view of him. But it really has been, I think, the last few years coming out of the pandemic, um, in particular that has, has put a lot of pressure on, on him and, and his negatives has started to rise. So much so that our, our most recent poll had just 30% of Canadians who have a positive impression of him, which isn’t a bad number, but it’s much lower than it, it once was. Yeah. Vote half have a negative impression of the Prime Minister and that’s close to the highest negative he’s ever had. And he’s basically been there for the last six to seven months. And, and so you know, right now if you walk down the street and you talk to 10 people, odds are about half of them, uh, would say negative things about Trudeau if you, if you prompted them.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings And what about Poilievre?

David Coletto I know we don’t have as much data on him, but he’s now, uh, been leader of the Conservative Party for at least a little while. And I know probably not many people know him, but some might know him from his work as an mp. Yeah. And, and we’ve been tracking public impressions of him when he announced that he was gonna run for conservative leader back in March of, of, of 2021. And. You know what’s interesting about Mr. Poilievre is, especially if you compare him to the previous two conservative party leaders, is, you know, when he was elected leader in September of 2021, he came in with far more people having an impression of him. You know, just as a comparison, 63% of Canadians said they either had a positive or negative view of Mr. Poilievre compared to only about 40% who. Either a positive or negative view of the previous conservative leader, or Andrew Sheer the leader before him. And so he was much more defined in people’s minds. A lot of them had more negative views of, of Mr. Poilievre but he also, I think, engendered a lot of positives. There’s lots of people who were, who were really excited about him, uh, as a political leader. So his, his trajectory has been, and compared to other opposition leaders, he’s, he’s in a more known quantity. And he finds himself today in a position where 36% of Canadians have a negative view of, of him, uh, compared to 29% who have a positive view. So the positives for him and Mr. Trudeau are about the same. Uh, the negatives are lower, mainly because they’re still lots of people who still don’t know very much about Mr. Poilievre, um, including 12% of Canadians who say, I don’t know enough about ’em at all to even have an opinion.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Is it normal or abnormal for the two leaders of, and, and not to dis the n DP here, but the two leaders who are fighting to be the country’s next prime minister to both have higher unfavorables than favorables?

David Coletto I would say it is to some extent. I mean, our, our system is, is, is first a multi-party system, right? And so unlike in the US. When you see, you know, a presidential candidate or a president, his approval rating or her approval rating in, in the case of if there ever is a, a female president, uh, falls below 50%, that’s usually a warning sign, right? Because it’s a two party system, right? But in Canada, you don’t typically need more than 40% of the vote in order to win a majority government. And so, uh, we typically see that that negatives are often higher than positives. But that’s not always the case. And what’s unique about the political. Is oftentimes opposition leaders, whether they’re the official opposition leader or third party, fourth party leaders, don’t become that well known until we have an election.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right.

David Coletto And, and that was the case with Mr. Oto and Mr. Sheer. It was the case with Mr. Singh, the NDP leader, uh, prior to, to his first election in 2019.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

David Coletto But in the case of Mr. Pev, he’s actually as well known as, as some of those other opposition leaders after an election, which I think is an indication. Of his effectiveness of getting attention and the times we’re in, in which the people are generally anxious, they’re quite dissatisfied with the federal government and the liberals right now. And so I think there’s a lot of people, um, craving some change and looking for alternatives and, and Mr. Poll is, is quite effectively filled that void. So I, I don’t think it’s always unique, but these two leaders represent something different in terms of the emotion. That they generate in, in response to, to anything that they do.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Well, that’s one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you because you’ve done really interesting work in terms of the strong emotions that can attach themselves to leaders like this. And maybe we’ll start with, uh, Justin Trudeau. Y you guys did a deep dive on the real anger towards him and not just the people who are like, ah, I don’t really like him, but the people who, who strongly dislike him. Can you explain what you were attempting to do?

David Colletto Yeah. Well, I mean, there. This, this both, I think conventional wisdom and it, it backs it up in the data that, that, particularly among men in Canada, there’s, there’s a, a deep animosity, a deep dislike for, for Justin Trudeau, and there’s quite a large gender gap, right?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

David Colletto When we ask people that question that we’ve already talked about, do you have a positive or negative view of, of Justin Tru? Men are more likely to have a negative view, uh, overall than women. But in particular in the survey we did in February that Susan Deur reported on, they were 10 points more likely, uh, which is significant large difference to have a very negative view of Justin Trudeau. And so what we wanted to do is understand why, what is it about Justin Trudeau that creates such a difference of opinion. Between men and women. And what we found was it’s in a summary, a broad mix of deep disagreement on the direction he’s taken the country or on some of the policy choices he’s made. But also, to be blunt, they just don’t like the guy and he rubs them the wrong way. He, they think he’s phony. Uh, half of men who really don’t like. Also describe him as feminine and, and I don’t think they’re using that in, in their case, as a positive, right? Mm-hmm. These are the words and descriptions they’re using to describe him and that anger, I think it’s anger. Some of it might be hatred. I don’t like that term in, in terms of politics, but there’s this real dislike that means anytime Justin Trudo speaks, anytime he’s trying to explain why he’s made the decisions he’s had or why he’s focused on a particular, I think most of them just don’t listen and they, they, they start. Just, just disagreeing with him even before they hear what he has to say. Well, give me some examples of that, because you interviewed and not just, you know, asked people to fill out, uh, poll responses. You interviewed some of these people to try to get to the bottom of this.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right. What was that like and where’s that real anger coming from? Can you describe it?

David Colletto Well, I think part of it is, you know, in, in hearing these descriptions that people use and the connection they’re making between the issues that, that Justin Trudeau, they believe, prioritize, and the issues they think. Should be the priority. I think some men in particular, uh, frankly, feel threatened by Justin Trudeau, and there’s two ways that I think they feel threatened. One is he’s a fairly good looking man.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

David Colletto I think, you know, you’ve probably had, uh, instances if you’re a male in this country where. Female associates, friends, maybe your own spouse might say nice things about the way he looks and that, you know, is threatening to, to any guy who’s been in a situation like this.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

David Colletto But perhaps more troubling from a broader perspective is I think there’s a subset of these, of these men who don’t like him, who really don’t like him, who feel threatened because of the, of the agenda. He’s advanced, right? He’s appointed a gender equal cabinet, equal men and women in his cabinet. He’s, he’s advocated a feminist international aid agenda. He’s brought in gender-based budgeting to the federal government, right? He’s really tried to advance the rights, not just of women, but of all equity seeking groups. And for a particularly white male, there is a subset who feel threatened by that, and Justin Trudeau is perhaps the embodiment and a reflection and a symbol. Of a status that is now under threat in their mind. And, and it’s really interesting when, when we ask these same people about how they feel about other world leaders, uh, or, or, or business people, you see hints of that, right? These are people who also really don’t like Hillary Clinton, but they have no problem with Barack Obama. Which I find so fascinating, right? Because most of ’em are conservative oriented, but Obama’s. But Hillary Clinton, um, and other kind of strong, uh, either feminist men or women rubbed them the wrong way. And that’s why I get to this conclusion that it, that it’s, it’s, it’s much deeper than just, I disagree with his politics or I don’t like how he’s running the country. There’s, there’s something kind of at their core that, that they feel he represents that, that they just are upholded by.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings You mentioned off the top just how long you’ve been tracking Trudeau for. Has he always had this kind of severe dislike gender gap for want of a better term for it? Have men always resented him, which is kind of what you’re describing?

David Coletto I, I don’t think so. I mean, if you go back again to. A survey we did right after he was first elected Prime Minister, uh, at the time, uh, among all adults in Canada, 19% had a negative view of him. Today that’s close to 50% again. So it’s more than doubled. Right. That’s not extraordinary. It happens. People get sick of the leaders and they make decisions and they alienate lots of people. Sure. But your question about the gendered gap there is different. Back in 2015, just 10% of. Had a very negative view of the Prime Minister and 8% of women did. So the, the gap that I said that today is 10 points was only two points back then. So at some point along this journey, men and women diverged in terms of how they were reacting to the Prime Minister were women who, who became negative may still have had, uh, things they didn’t like that the Prime Minister was doing. But it wasn’t a visceral, deep reaction. And I think many things over the course of. Term in office help explain this, right. We always saw a huge shift in people’s perceptions after his infamous trip to India, right, in which he unfortunately dressed up in traditional Indian outfits and was mocked. By not just Canadian, uh, commentators by, but comedians around the world, right?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

David Coletto Um, that was a really bad trip that, that I think raised doubts about his seriousness. And then it was, you know, the s n c Lavalin controversy and then, you know, wearing blackface during the 2019 election, and then finally the pandemic and the way that he approached that. I think for many people just added to, to their dislike. So, yeah, I, I, I think we have to also just stress that like when Stephen Harper lost in 2015, you know, more than half of Canadians had a negative view of him, and many people had a deeply negative view. But what’s different about what people felt about Stephen Harper in 2015 than how they feel about Justin Trudeau today is they disliked Stephen Harper. They fundamentally disagreed, uh, with how he was running the country and perhaps his worldview, but I think deep down, they still didn’t think he was a horrible, horrible person, right? Who like, and they would use words like idiot, liar, and, and dumb to describe, right? The worst things you can say about. A lot of them are saying them about Justin Trudeau today. How much of it is Trudeau himself and how much of it is just, uh, the way politics have changed over the past half decade or more? You know, I feel like people on both sides are more quick to anger or, you know, quick to use, uh, terms like you just said, you know, like liar or idiot or whatever. And Trudeau being. Face of politics in Canada catches more of that than most. Maybe my answer’s more speculation than, than database, but you know, you think of how different the world is over the last 10 years, how we get information, what effects are impressions and perceptions of the world around us. And there’s no doubt we are more easily exposed to ideas and frames that, that we wouldn’t otherwise get to. Right. I think we’ve also lived through very traumatic pandemic. Um, the world is changing rapidly, the economy’s changing, and so there’s all of these kind of constant, I love the word perma crisis, right?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Around us. That means, you know, when we feel insecure, um, we, we, we often look to take it out on somebody, and Justin Trudeau is as prominent a person you can be in this country. And so I do think the times produces that, which is why when we talk about pure poly. He’s having the same effect, and I know we’re gonna talk about this on other parts of the, the population who are reacting as negatively towards him as some others are reacting to Justin Trudeau. So there’s this recent clash of values.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

David Colletto This clash of, of worldviews and Justin Trudeau, I think is, is a quintessential. Some term open, uh, fluid kind of worldview that sees the world as like this safer, exciting place to explore. And that is in sharp contrast to people who feel threatened and unsafe by all the changes they’re seeing around them. And that I think that is relatively new. And so you work all that up and you probably are in a situation where it’s first much harder to just be a political leader today, which is why so few people are stepping up to do it. And then two, You’re much more likely perhaps to have an emotional reaction, uh, to a political leader than a rational one that’s based on, uh, the decisions they’re making and the policies they’re choosing to follow. If you are, uh, the Trudeau administration or campaign and you’re trying to figure out what to do in the next election, is it worth trying to win any of these folks back? Or is the animosity just too strong? And if it is, do you then counter by leaning even more into the things they dislike? And that, of course keeps the cycle going. I think it’s very hard to change, uh, people’s opinions when they hold such negative views of you. There are events that can happen. I. People’s views of Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario. They did change during the pandemic, right? He was one of the least popular premieres before the pandemic. And uh, the pandemic, I think forced people to reevaluate him slightly and so that, that deep negativity was softened. But, you know, I do a lot of work in, in reputation management for, for brands, for industries, and for people. And yeah, once you fall into the, the whole of deep dislike of, so, it’s very hard to to change. So I don’t think it’s possible for Justin Chau to convince these people to not believe what they believe now about him. And the main reason is, as I said earlier, what this emotional reaction does to you is it makes it impossible to really listen to Justin Chau anymore. If you ha, if you hate him, you really don’t like them, and you turn on your TV and you see ’em step up to a podium, you’re not gonna listen to ’em the same way that somebody either who’s neutral towards him or like. Is going to listen. Mm-hmm. And that closes you off to being convinced or persuaded otherwise. So it’s, it’s very hard whether he leans in and tries to aggravate them. I’m not sure. But one of the things that’s a real political challenge for Justin Trudeau is those who dislike him deeply, far outweigh the, the number of Canadians who really like him and dislike and wanting to see ’em defeated is a strong motivator to. And you know, we’ve seen voter turnout at all levels decline over the last number of years. And so whenever the next federal election comes, if you’ve got this large number of people, men and women who really don’t like you, you can bet they’re gonna come out and vote. You need to find a way to create some other reaction that might cause other people to do the same thing for, for a different.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Which is a perfect segue to talking about Pierre Pev because there’s a segment of people that really dislike him as well. So who are they and how strong is that dislike and how does it compare, uh, to what Trudeau gets?

David Coletto So yeah, just to recap, uh, at this stage, Mr. Pev doesn’t have as negative or as many people have a negative view of him as, as the Prime Minister, but in the short time he is been. As I said, he hasn’t had a long honeymoon or a honeymoon even, where, you know, you’ve got more people who like him than dislike him. 36% of Canadians have a negative view of Pierre Pev. Uh, one in five have a very negative view. So there’s, there’s one in five people out there who really don’t like him. What’s different about those who dislike Mr. Poilivre is they tend to, women, you know, there’s lots of men who don’t like Pure Poly as there are lots of women who don’t like Justin Trudeau, but there is a gender gap as well on this side of the political spectrum. And the reasons that women tell me they don’t like him is, is really split between three areas. One is they just don’t like him personally. They find him rude, aggressive. Uh, arrogant, right? Sure. I mean, he sometimes leans into that, right?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Yeah, he does.

David Coletto And, and he’s a, an attack dog. And some people find that really appealing and especially when the target’s Justin Trudeau, right? Imagine the same people I said who really don’t like Trudeau. They love it when they see Pierre Poilievre of going at him.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Oh, for sure.

David Coletto But there is a subset and women in particular, I, I get turned off by the kind of game of politics, right? And, and how aggress. And arrogant. I think Mr. Pev can appear at times. So that’s one reason. Uh, another is, is. His political beliefs, you know, women are less likely to, to support the conservative party. And so him being the conservative leader, you know, instantly turned some of them off. They think he’s too right wing. They didn’t like his support of the convoy at times. Or those who, who were as part of the convoy that occupied Ottawa. They think there’s elements in the party and, and therefore he accepts it around being, you know, anti-abortion, uh, anti, uh, LGBTQ and and other things like that. And then the last one, and this is the challenge every opposition leader faces, is that he only criticizes and offers no concrete solutions or ideas himself. Hmm. And so the mix of those are what women say are, are, are reasons they don’t like him, which is in some ways similar to why men don’t like Justin Trudeau, but just a little less like visceral, I think. But we’re, we’re getting to the point where for many women, Pierre Poilievre could be as, as much a turnoff as, as Justin Trudeau is to some. Politics doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Elections don’t happen in a vacuum. You have to make a choice. And so for, for Mr. Poilievre he is banking on people being so dissatisfied with Justin Trudeau’s government with so wanting change that they’d be willing to accept somebody who they may not really like, but they would imagine being better than than Justin Trudeau.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

David Coletto For Mr. Trudeau. You’re, you’re, you’re probably headed towards a position where you’re not gonna be able to convince a lot of people that you are so great and that they love you again, but that you’re still better than the unsafe, scary alternative that Pierre Poilievre have represents. And so we’re getting towards, it feels like an election in which we’re gonna be arguing with who’s the worst option as opposed to who’s the best option to lead the country. These are gonna be two people who aren’t well liked, and so they basically have to make the other person so unappealing to enough people that, that’s the only way either of them are gonna likely win. I’m not excited to poll or, or follow that kind of politics, but the data suggests that’s where we’re likely headed.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings David, thank you for walking us through this data and, uh, I guess we’ll both, uh, live in fear of the next federal election.

David Coletto Yeah, thanks Jordan. Great to talk to you.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings David Coletto, CEO of Abacas Data. That was the big story. For more, you can head to the big story podcast.ca. You can find us on Twitter at the big story fp n. You can always email us hello at the big story podcast.ca. Or if you prefer the phone, give us a call. Four one six nine three five five nine three. You can get this podcast absolutely anywhere you get your favourite podcasts. When you do, don’t forget to rate and please leave us a review if it lets ya. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.