Liberals favoured to best manage energy, resources, Ipsos poll says

A new Ipsos poll, commissioned exclusively for Global News shows Canadians think Mark Carney and the Liberals would do the best job of responsibly managing Canada's resources.

With Canada’s future relationship with the United States dominating the federal election campaign so far, a new poll is shedding some light on which party Canadians think would be best to manage the country’s resources — one of the pillars of our economic relationship with the Americans.

When asked which party and leader would do the best job at managing Canada’s energy and resources, a majority of the respondents to the Ipsos poll, commissioned exclusively for Global News, chose the federal Liberals and their leader Mark Carney, over the Conservatives and their leader Pierre Poilievre.

Overall, 69 per cent of those surveyed said Canada needs to “act faster on opportunities for developing energy and resource projects in light of the dispute with the U.S.” — including 26 per cent of respondents who agreed that we need to “push obstacles out of the way” and 43 per cent who agreed we need to move faster but “with some caution.”

When asked which leader and party would do the best job of managing Canada’s energy and resources to “create jobs and grow the economy,” as well as ensuring we do it in an “environmentally responsible and sustainable manner,”  a majority of respondents chose Mark Carney and the federal Liberals over Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives.  (38 per cent for the Liberals versus 25 per cent for the Conservatives)

“It shouldn’t be surprising that the Liberals lead on energy issues related to the environment,” said Kyle Braid, senior vice-president of Ipsos Public Affairs. “What could be surprising to some, especially to the Conservatives, is that the Liberals are actually leading on the energy file for managing it for creating jobs and growing the economy.

“It’s surprising because this is a bread-and-butter issue of the Conservatives — it’s something they’ve been talking about for years,” added Braid.  “Canadians do seem to want to see growth in these industries, yet at this point Canadians seem to be more approving of the, let’s say, balanced approach of the Liberals than the aggressive let’s-do-everything approach of the Conservatives.”

Broken down further, by region and demographics, Carney and the Liberals poll ahead of Poilievre and the Conservatives in all categories — with the exception of Alberta, where more respondents think the Conservatives would do a better job at balancing economic opportunities and environmental concerns, (41 per cent for the Conservatives versus 37 per cent for the Liberals)

However, the spread of 4 percentage points is not as wide of a gap as Braid expected.