Canadians Losing Trust and Support for Stephan Harper's government performance

Only 13% think Harper speaks the truth: Poll

 

A new Canadian poll shows that only 13 percent of Canadians believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper is honest in saying that he had no knowledge of the recent scandal involving his chief of staff's 90,000-dollar bailout of Senator Mike Duffy.

The poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid on May 27 and 28, involved 1,009 respondents and was published on Thursday by CTV News.

More than 42 percent were “convinced that the prime minister would have known about the monetary gift by Mr. Wright at the time.”

And upwards of 44 percent were “not sure whether or not the prime minister had any knowledge of the monetary gift made by Mr. Wright at the time.”

The survey also showed that the support for Harper’s government has declined as six in 10 Canadians either “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove of the conservative government’s performance.

While the remaining four in 10 approved of the government’s performance at some level, down four points from last month's reading.

More than two-thirds of those who answered the poll, 69 percent, said it was “time for another federal party to take over,” an increase of 11 percent since a poll conducted in December 2010.

Those who believed that the Harper government “has done a good job and deserves re-election,” were at 31 percent, down from the previous reading of 42 per cent.

Throughout the scandal, Harper insists that he was not aware about the payout to Senator Mike Duffy.

On May 19, Harper's chief of staff Nigel Wright announced his resignation after it was revealed on May 14 that he had secretly given a check of 90,000 Canadian dollars (about USD 87,000) to the senator, who resigned from the conservative caucus on May 16.

Wright gave the money to help Duffy repay housing expenses, which the senator had improperly claimed.