Trudeau, Poilievre, Singh all viewed negatively by majority of Canadians
December 20, 2024 – The holidays are often a season of reflection, but for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the scale of personal deliberation is reportedly going to be gargantuan, as he will decide whether or not to lead his party into an expected election this fall (or earlier) or to step aside for a new Liberal leader. Trudeau’s steadfast position that he would lead the party for one more election was evidently shaken by the resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland earlier this week.
New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds that Trudeau endured a difficult 2024 in the public eye, seeing his approval rate fall four points between January and December to just 28 per cent. This is tied for his lowest point in public opinion, after more than nine years in the nation’s top job.
His fellow major federal party leaders are faring better, but not by much. Both CPC leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh are viewed unfavourably by more than half of Canadians and have the favourable opinion of fewer than two-in-five:
While Trudeau sunk to his lowest point in 2024, generating a -40 in net approval (approval minus disapproval), both of his competitors endured attrition as well. Though his party enjoys a significant vote intention advantage to end the year, Poilievre holds a -18 net favourability. This mark grew by eight points throughout the year. In a year where he ended his party’s Supply and Confidence Agreement with the governing Liberals, Singh saw his net favourability drop from -4 to -16, the largest negative movement of any leader:
End of year leadership review
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Continued decline for Trudeau
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Trudeau and his predecessors
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CPC climbs but Poilievre trails behind in public sentiment
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Singh finishes the year down
Continued decline for Trudeau
“Like most families, sometimes we have fights around the holidays,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a speech to the Liberal Party’s holiday event in what might be the understatement of the Canadian political year. The year-end gathering had inauspicious timing – it came the day after Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland had quit her post on what was supposed to be the day she delivered the federal government’s Fall Economic Statement. The sudden departure triggered what would be a chaotic day on Parliament Hill that ended with Trudeau staying on – despite speculation he was considering stepping down himself in response – and taking the holidays to decide how to proceed. The calls for Trudeau to resign from within his party grew louder after Freeland’s resignation.
His party remains more than 20-points behind the opposition Conservatives in vote intention, and views of him remain overwhelmingly negative.
Fewer than three-in-ten (28%) Canadians approve of Trudeau’s performance as prime minister, tying what is a low of his tenure. Trudeau’s approval has not reached higher than one-third since September 2023.
Women are less critical of Trudeau than men, who have grown more negative of the prime minister this year. However, at most 35 per cent of any single demographic approve of Trudeau – women older than 55:
A majority of 2021 Liberal voters (56%) approve of Trudeau, but two-in-five (40%) do not. And views of the group who helped elect him to a third term in government have declined by six points during 2024. He does fare better (78% approval) among those who say they would vote Liberal if the election was held today, but as the vote intention picture shows, this group of supporters is much smaller than it has been throughout his entire tenure.
Trudeau and his predecessors
Using data compiled from the ODESI archive, we can compare Trudeau’s current nadir with that of his predecessors. Trudeau’s low point is just one point higher than that of his father, who served as prime ninister for more than 15 years in two non-consecutive stints. His lowest approval rate came with approximately two years remaining in his second run. The lowest point for any leader was recorded for Brian Mulroney during his second majority government, when he was approved of by just 12 per cent of Canadians. This, during the year that his government implemented the GST, which led to anger and confusion. The younger Trudeau’s low point comes as his GST holiday has proven to be perceived as an “entirely political” endeavour:
CPC climbs but Poilievre trails behind in public sentiment
The Conservatives under leader Pierre Poilievre have lapped their rivals when it comes to voter support, but views of Poilievre himself remain more negative than positive. Fewer than two-in-five (37%) say they have a favourable view of the CPC leader, outnumbered by the majority of Canadians (55%) who do not. And the latter proportion has grown throughout 2024, despite the Conservatives’ popularity among the electorate currently.
Poilievre’s favourability has stayed at a similar level since he was first elected as Conservative leader.
Poilievre’s main issue continues to be a significant gender gap in appraisal. However, he made slight gains among 18- to 34-year-old women in 2024, but those were offset by larger declines among men that age over the same period.
Poilievre remains very popular among 2021 Conservative voters, with more than four-in-five (83%) saying they have a favourable view of him. The opposite is true among other political groups, and he’s lost ground among those who voted Liberal, NDP and Bloc Québécois in the 2021 election:
Singh finishes the year down
There have been signs of improvement over the past few months for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh when it comes to public opinion. Indeed, he has enjoyed a five-point bump from his nadir of 33 per cent in September, but still ends the year down six points. Singh and his party ended the Supply and Confidence Agreement with Trudeau’s Liberals in September, but have continued to support legislation, including the Liberal’s GST holiday. That said, he also pushed the government to split off a $250 rebate cheque into a separate bill after he claimed too many people would be exempted from the cheque as originally proposed. Singh has recently stated that Trudeau “has to go”, though this statement was made after this survey was conducted:
The main source of Singh’s drop in favourability is among young people. He lost 14 points among young men and 11 among young women in 2024. These are groups he will hope to win back ahead of a pivotal election for himself and his party:
Singh’s favourability among his own 2021 voters dropped five points this year from 80 to 75 per cent. This puts him well ahead of Trudeau’s mark with past voters (56%) but behind where Poilievre sits with 2021 CPC voters (83%). Notably, Singh has the same favourability among 2021 Liberals as Trudeau has approval:
Survey Methodology
The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, 2024 among a representative randomized sample of 4,004 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 1.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. The survey was self-commissioned and paid for by ARI.
For detailed results by age, gender, region, education, and other demographics, click here.
For a PDF of the report, click here.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Shachi Kurl, President: 604.908.1693 shachi.kurl@angusreid.org
Dave Korzinski, Research Director: 250.899.0821 dave.korzinski@angusreid.org
Jon Roe, Research Associate: 825.437.1147 jon.roe@angusreid.org
About ARI
The Angus Reid Institute (ARI) was founded in October 2014 by pollster and sociologist, Dr. Angus Reid. ARI is a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation established to advance education by commissioning, conducting and disseminating to the public accessible and impartial statistical data, research and policy analysis on economics, political science, philanthropy, public administration, domestic and international affairs and other socio-economic issues of importance to Canada and its world.