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Support continues to dip for federal Liberals

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Support continues to dip for federal Liberals

A new Forum Research poll shows support for the federal Liberal party continuing to dip.

Support for the federal Liberal party is continuing to slide, a new Forum Research poll shows.

The poll, released Monday as the House of Commons debated a motion to send Canadian fighter jets to Iraq, found 38 per cent support for leader Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, compared to 34 per cent for the Conservatives.

That’s a sustained drop for the Liberals, who were ahead by six points in September (40 per cent for the Liberals to 34 per cent for the Conservatives) and nine points in August (41 per cent to 32 per cent).

The Liberals had a 12-point lead in July.

“We are seeing a slow but measurable trend towards parity between the two leading parties,’’ Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff said Monday.

“The Liberals now lead the Conservatives by such a slight amount.”

The NDP polled at 19 per cent, according to the latest figures, compared to 18 per cent last month, and 17 per cent in August.

The new poll was conducted Friday through Sunday.

Harper announced Friday that Canada is dispatching CF-18 fighter jets to the Middle East to battle Islamic State militants for a six-month mission.

Both the Liberals and NDP stated that same day that they would oppose such a move.

Members of all three parties debated the motion to go to war against Islamic State militants during the parliamentary debate on Monday.

Bozinoff said the Conservatives appear to be enjoying a “bit of a bump’’ over the fact Canada is joining a coalition of the top military powers.

Bozinoff also said some of the “shine’’ could be coming off Trudeau over a comment the Liberal leader made last week about whipping “out our CF-18s and show them how big they are.” The comment, intended to criticize the government’s decision to deploy the fighter jets, was criticized by many Conservatives.

Like most polling firms, Forum uses a weighting formula, which has been shared with the Star, to more accurately reflect the broader electorate. Raw data from this poll will be housed in the Political Science Data Library at the University of Toronto.

The random, interactive telephone voice-response poll surveyed 1,504 adult Canadians. Results are considered accurate plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/10/07/support_continues_to_dip_for_federal_liberals.html

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