One month after publishing a survey suggesting the Couillard Liberals and the Parti Québécois were in a dead heat in public support, a Léger Marketing survey suggests the Liberals lead the PQ by three percentage points.
And while the PQ can take solace from the fact that lead remains within the poll’s margin of error, the survey contains little good news when it comes to the party’s political raison d’etre — Quebec sovereignty.
The survey, conducted for Le Devoir and the Journal de Montréal Jan. 17-19, found the Quebec Liberals polling 32 per cent of public support compared with 29 for the PQ and 23 per cent for the Coalition Avenir Québec. Québec solidaire polled nine per cent.
Dissatisfaction with the Couillard government stood at 62 per cent, a drop of four percentage points compared with December, with 30 per cent respondents saying they were “very dissatisfied.”
The Liberal lead remains within the survey’s 3.1 per cent margin of error and could mirror the findings of a Léger survey in December that found the Liberals and PQ tied in public support at 30 per cent. Meanwhile, none of Quebec’s three main political leaders are more popular than their parties: Premier Philippe Couillard, PQ leader Jean-François Lisée and CAQ leader François Legault each poll at 18 per cent.
But Lisée’s pledge not to hold a sovereignty referendum during the first term of a PQ government hasn’t made the prospect of eventual independence any more palatable. Support for separation remains stalled at 35 per cent, with 57 per cent of francophones saying they would vote to stay in Canada and voters age 18-24 most opposed to the independence option (77 per cent), followed by respondents 65 and up (74 per cent).
But if most Quebecers seem content to remain in Confederation, they remain concerned over the survival of French, with 54 per cent of respondents saying the language was threatened, a proportion that increased to 66 per cent when only francophone respondents were considered.
