New poll has Liberals, NDP at 20-per-cent support mark

Despite expressing confidence in the Yukon's economy, 22 per cent of those polled in a summer DataPath Systems survey said they feel worse off than they were a year ago.

Despite expressing confidence in the Yukon’s economy, 22 per cent of those polled in a summer DataPath Systems survey said they feel worse off than they were a year ago.

As well, 12 per cent of Yukoners believed the price of oil and gas was a priority issue. That put it into the top three, which included the environment (17 per cent) and the economy (15 per cent).

“Several years ago, the economy was always number one by a huge margin but in the past few years it’s come down,“ Donna Larsen, of DataPath Systems, said in an interview today.

“The fact is when the economy is good, people don’t see it as an issue any more, and suddenly, for this poll, we’ve seen oil and gas rise to levels that we’ve never seen before… it’s normally around six or seven per cent.“

This summer, 23 per cent of respondents said the Yukon’s economy is in peak condition, up from 21 per cent in March. This confidence in the territory continues to reflect ratings for the Yukon Party, said Larsen.

Twenty-five per cent of Yukoners gave the ruling party positive ratings (4 or 5 on a scale of 1-5), while poor ratings of 1 or 2 dropped from 35 per cent to 32 per cent, their lowest levels since the fall of 2004.

Those giving the opposition Liberals a positive rating grew to 14 per cent compared to 12 per cent in March.

However, a greater percentage of those polled rated the Liberals’ performance as poor (54 per cent versus 51 in March).

The Yukon’s NDP experienced a similar result, with positive ratings growing to 10 per cent from five per cent in March, but 70 per cent polled gave the NDP a poor rating, climbing from 59 per cent recorded in the spring.

If the territorial election was held today, the Yukon Party’s share of voters would be consistent with March 2007 and spring 2006, with 45 per cent support.

During the past year, the Liberals and NDP have remained stable, each garnering support from 20 per cent of voters.

In federal politics, support for Liberal MP Larry Bagnell dropped from 55 per cent in March to 49 per cent today. That difference has been picked up by the Conservatives, whose support in the territory rose to 30 per cent from 24 per cent in March.

The NDP and the Green Party showed little change, earning 12 per cent and nine per cent support respectively.

But even while 49 per cent of Yukoners support Bagnell, just 24 per cent support Liberal Leader Stephan Dion as the next prime minister.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is supported by 54 per cent of Yukoners, while 14 per cent support NDP Leader Jack Layton and seven per cent endorse the Green Party’s Elizabeth May.

“Support for Bagnell, compared to the federal Liberals at large, that’s consistent too,“ said Larsen. “We saw that going into the last federal election (in 2006), where Larry’s able to get that high level of support, even though his party might not be the preference for voters.“

DataPath Systems is an independent Yukon-based market research company based at Marsh Lake.

Results for this survey - valid to plus or minus 5.5 per cent 19 times out of 20 - were comprised from answers provided by 150 Whitehorse residents and 150 residents outside the capital.