By The Canadian Press

election polls

Liberals hold six-point lead over Conservatives: Leger poll

Mar 25, 2025 | 1:00 AM

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals are pushing further ahead of the Conservatives in voter support and almost half of Canadians surveyed think the Liberals will win the election, a new poll suggests.

The poll comes as the two leading parties challenge each other’s policies on housing and defence on the campaign trail.

The survey, conducted by Leger for The Canadian Press, reports that 44 per cent of decided voters surveyed say they would vote Liberal in the upcoming election, ahead of the Conservatives at 38 per cent.

The NDP are in a distant third at six per cent.

The poll showed 48 per cent of those surveyed think the Liberals are going to win the election, compared with 31 per cent who said the Conservatives would win it.

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The poll surveyed 1,599 Canadians between March 21 and March 23, which includes the first day of the election and the two days leading into it.

Because the poll was conducted online, it can’t be assigned a margin of error.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, campaigning in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan, Ont., Tuesday, pledged to eliminate the GST on the cost of new homes up to $1.3 million. He said that would save homebuyers up to $65,000 and would be funded through revenue generated from a larger number of housing starts.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney, whose campaign tour was in Halifax, promised to modernize military recruitment by raising military salaries and building more on-base housing and services.

The NDP accused both the Liberals and Tories of supporting higher housing prices.

The Leger poll continues the sharp reversal in Liberal support that began after former prime minister Justin Trudeau announced in January he would step aside once a new Liberal leader was elected, and in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats of annexation.

In mid-January the Conservatives led the Liberals by more than 25 points in a Leger poll.

Since Carney won that race on March 9 the Liberal numbers have jumped further. The weekend of that race the Liberals and Conservatives were tied at 37 per cent each in a Leger poll.

One week ago the Liberals were at 42 per cent support compared with 39 per cent.

Sébastien Dallaire, Leger’s executive vice-president for Eastern Canada, said what used to be a small lead for the Liberals is now a “statistically significant” lead of six points.

Dallaire also pointed out that the decline of the NDP has reaffirmed that this election is a two-horse race. The NDP’s six per cent support in the current poll is down three points compared to one week earlier.

“This survey, that marks the start of the campaign, unfortunately for the NDP just confirms that, as of now, they are really far behind. The floor seems to have disappeared under their feet,” Dallaire said.

The latest poll suggests 39 per cent of Canadians think Carney would make the best prime minister, compared with 28 per cent for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

“It speaks to the personal appeal of Mark Carney right now,” Dallaire said of the 11-point gap. “Probably what’s going to be the defining factor during this campaign is how well Mark Carney is able to meet those expectations and to match what’s in his resume.

“This lead right now is based on what Canadians know of him but not Canadians knowing him.”

The Liberals lead in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, while the Conservatives remain the top choice in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Among men, the two parties are tied at 42 per cent each, while 46 per cent of women backed the Liberals, compared with 33 per cent for the Conservatives.

The Liberals have a large lead over the Conservatives among those over the age of 55, while the Conservatives have small leads over the Liberals among voters aged 18 to 34 and 35 to 54.

Dallaire said recent polls show that the top issue for voters is dealing with Trump and U.S. tariffs. He said the “ballot box question” right now is which leader would be best at managing Trump.

“For as long as the main issue of the campaign is Donald Trump and the threat of tariffs or the threat of annexation for Canada, that helps Mark Carney,” Dallaire said, adding that parties like the Conservatives will need to try to shift the discussion to issues like affordability and inflation in order to get ahead.

“With Canadians looking south and being very worried about what’s coming from the United States, the main issues that really propelled (Conservative Leader) Pierre Poilievre in the lead are not as important right now to voters,” he said.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2025.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press