A new Forum poll finds Liberals leading in GTA, Toronto
The survey on voting intentions in Toronto and the GTA contrasts sharply to Forum’s recent polls

thestar.com
Sept. 19, 2015
By Donovan Vincent

The federal Liberals appear to have a gained a foothold in Toronto and the GTA, with 41 per cent of voters saying they’ve decided on - or are leaning toward - the party, a new poll by Forum Research finds.

Thirty-one per cent of 1,183 respondents in the 416 and 905 regionspolled Sept. 16 and 17 said they’ll vote for or are inclined toward the Conservatives, and 24 per cent said they favoured the NDP.

The Green party drew 4 per cent support and 1 per cent of respondents said “other.”

The survey on voting intentions in Toronto and the GTA contrasts sharply to Forum’s recent polls on Canada-wide trends. Forum and other leading polling firms now have the Conservatives, NDP and Liberals each hovering around 30-per-cent support among Canada’s voting public.

“While it is known that Toronto is a Liberal heartland, it is surprising to see this poll dispel the myth of the monolithic Conservative vote in the 905 area code,” Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff said.

Bozinoff suggests the results on voter support in Toronto and the GTA might be due to the large immigrant population in the region being “dissatisfied” with the Conservatives’ handling of recent issues such as the Syrian refugees - a topic Bozinoff says may not be resonating as strongly across Canada as it does locally.

“Toronto and the GTA are very different than the rest of the country. There are lots of immigrants in this community,” he added.

Meanwhile, another Forum poll earlier this week asked questions on the Conservatives’ controversial anti-terrorism law, Bill C-51, to a separate sample of voters, and found support for the law fairly evenly split.

Thatpublic opinion survey, conducted Sept. 14 and 15,  found four in 10 people (41 per cent) support the anti-terror law, while 37 per cent oppose the legislation.

Twenty-two per cent of respondents don’t know if they support it or not, Forum found.

A total of 1,402 people were surveyed for this poll.

“Bill C-51 doesn’t arouse the general public anger the NDP seems to expect, and many people support it,” Forum’s Bozinoff said in a statement, referring to the poll results.

The poll on voting intentions in Toronto and the GTA and the survey on C-51 each have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The poll on C-51 shows support for and opposition to the law skewing strongly along generational lines - with 47 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 34 opposing it, and 47 per cent of respondents aged 65 and older in favour.

Members of the federal New Democratic Party want to kill C-51, while Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and his party voted in favour of the legislation - though Trudeau says, if elected in the Oct. 19 federal election, his party would attach more scrutiny over police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to the law.

Passed in June, C-51 gives expanded powers to CSIS and police. But the law has been criticized as giving police and security agencies the ability to cast too wide an investigative net, and critics charge the law will lead to gross infringements on civil liberties, including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

The poll on C-51 also asked respondents for their views on ISIS. The results show a smaller percentage of Canadians feel the Islamic group based in Syria and Iraq is a direct threat to Canada, compared to results in January.

The latest poll found 55 per cent of Canadians believe ISIS is a threat to Canada, while 30 per cent of respondents don’t feel that way, and the rest don’t know.

But in January, while Canadian fighter jets were stepping up airstrikes on Islamic Statetargets in Iraq, a Forum poll at the time found two-thirds (67 per cent) viewed ISIS as a direct threat to Canada.