Posted on 09/19/2012 12:01:35 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
A quiet summer has given Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives some breathing room as they head Monday into what could be an acrimonious fall sitting of Parliament.
A new poll gives the governing party a seven-point lead over the Opposition New Democrats -- a cushion they may need if a second omnibus budget implementation bill sparks the same public backlash and all-out parliamentary warfare its predecessor did last spring.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey, which was conducted Aug. 30-Sept. 10, put Conservative support at 34 per cent of respondents, the NDP at 27, the Liberals at 24 and the Greens at seven.
The telephone poll of 2,007 Canadians is considered accurate within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times in 20.
The results suggest Canadians may be slowly returning to "more traditional patterns of voting behaviour," said Harris-Decima chairman Allan Gregg.
Until now, New Democrats had been running neck and neck with -- or even slightly ahead of -- the ruling party, eating into core Conservative support among older, male and rural voters and core Liberal support among female and urban voters.
The latest poll suggests those voters are migrating back to the traditional choices, said Gregg, causing NDP support to sag and producing modest gains for the Conservatives and Liberals.
A relatively sleepy summer with little federal political controversy has likely helped settle voters back into a somewhat more traditional pattern. But Monday's resumption of Parliament could shake things up again.
Just how much of an enemy Parliament proves to be to Harper's Conservatives will revolve primarily around the second budget implementation bill, which government House leader Peter Van Loan describes as the "cornerstone legislation" of a fall sitting focused on job creation and economic growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
The Canadian Conservatives should take all those damn 250 year old sore losers in Quebec and ship them back to France with one-way tickets.
Now, don't call the PQ people sore Losers -- call them: 'Le LOSERS Sore' (or however you say SORE LOSERS in FRENCH!!)
PQ -- Parti Queers as my friend in Montreal calls them!!
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