Canadian Conservatives continue to hold lead in polls

As Canada narrowly avoided another federal election just a short time ago, a new poll reveals that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are holding a steady lead over Michael Ignatieff's Liberals.

A new poll released on Saturday shows that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party is holding a steady 38 per cent lead as opposed to Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party who hold 28.8 per cent, according to Reuters. The Nanos Research telephone survey conducted the same poll last month, which showed both parties with higher leads by 1 or 2 per cent. However, gains were made by the Bloc Quebecois, the New Democratic Party and the Green Party between 6 and 18 per cent. The poll further shows that Canadians view Stephen Harper as the best Prime Minister among the likely candidates with 34.8 per cent believing so. Ignatieff came in second place with 17.7 per cent. Nikita Nanos, an Ottawa-based pollster, told Bloomberg News in an e-mail, “The Conservatives currently have the upper hand. The dilemma they face is that their numbers are strong but it is difficult to take advantage of it politically because of the Harper communications mantra that ‘this isn’t a good time for an election.’” The Nanos survey was conducted between November 7 and November 10 with 1,005 Canadian respondents and contains a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points. On Thursday, another poll was released by Ekos, according to Reuters, which showed that if an election were held today that the Conservatives would likely not improve on the results of last year’s election. Nevertheless, it suggested that the Conservatives hold a 10 per cent lead.