On the first day of Senator Mike Duffy’s trial in Ottawa, a new poll suggests 86 per cent of Canadians want the red chamber reformed or abolished.
Forty-five per cent of respondents want the Senate reformed and nearly as many -- 41 per cent -- want the Senate abolished, according to the online Angus Reid Institute survey of 1,500 people taken in March.
Only 14 per cent want the Senate “left as is.”
The poll also suggests hunger for change diminished somewhat since the last time Angus Reid Institute asked the question. That was in November, 2013, after months of headlines about housing and travel costs expensed by Senators, including Duffy. In that poll, 50 per cent favoured abolition, 43 per cent wanted reform and just seven per cent preferred the Senate be “left as is.”
Interestingly, self-described Conservative and NDP voters surveyed remain relatively evenly split between abolition and reformation, despite leaders of those parties having opposite views.
Among Conservative voters, 44 per cent favour abolition and 45 per cent favour reform. Among NDP voters, 49 per cent favour abolition and 40 per cent favour reform.
Self-identified Liberal voters were much more likely to fall in line with their leader’s view, supporting reformation (52 per cent) over abolition (35 per cent).
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in favour of reforming the Senate by adding term limits and ‘consultative elections.’ That type of reform is a long shot, however, after the Supreme Court ruled last year that such changes would need the approval of seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population.
NDP Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair wants abolition. The NDP has never had any senators, who are appointed by the prime minister -- an office no NDP leader has never held.
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau prefers a Senate more independent from political parties, which he took a step toward last year by expelling unelected senators from the Liberal caucus.
Either way, the leaders’ positions might not mean much to voters this fall when an election is expected to be held.
When asked which leader they “trust the most the most to effectively deal with Senate issues,” a third (34 per cent) of respondents picked “none of them,” while only 17 per cent said Harper, just 16 per cent said Mulcair and a meagre 15 per cent picked Trudeau. The rest were unsure.
Also worth noting is that few respondents believe the Senate will be “a deciding factor in this year’s federal election.” The poll report says 16 per cent agreed it would be a deciding factor in the vote, 26 per cent agreed it wouldn’t be and 59 per cent were somewhere in between.
Angus Reid Institute conducted the online survey among a “representative randomized sample of 1,500 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum.”
“For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/-¬ 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20,” says the report.
