- Wednesday, September 11, 2024
An Ipsos survey has said that 40 per cent of Canadians want to see opposition leader Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party as the prime minister.
By: Shubham Ghosh
CANADIAN prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has faced criticism over his allegation made earlier this week that India is involved in the killing of Khalistan separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, seems to be losing his popularity, a new poll has revealed.
An Ipsos survey has said that 40 per cent of Canadians want to see opposition leader Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party as the prime minister. If elections are held today, Poilievre’s party will get 39 per cent of votes while Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which came in power in 2015, will get 30 per cent, Canada’s Global News reported.
The Conservatives will form a majority government, dethroning the Liberal minority dispensation if polls are held now, the survey said. Elections in the North American nation are due in 2025.
Months before the current diplomatic row between Canada and India, too, Trudeau’s position was not strong. In July, another survey found that the 51-year-old premier was the worst prime minister Canada had in more than half a century. Justin’s father Pierre Trudeau, who had also been a prime minister of Canada between the late 1960s and mid 1980s, was popular among Canadian voters, CTV news said.
The latest poll results come out at a time when the incumbent prime minister has been accused of being soft and non-committal about taking measures against Khalistan supporters and often downplaying their activism as “freedom of expression”.
Trudeau had a tense meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi during his visit to New Delhi for the G20 summit earlier in September. The Indian leader had raised his concerns with Trudeau over alleged “anti-India activities” on Canadian soil.
Trudeau had said then that Canada would always defend “freedom of expression” while acting against hatred.
The Sikh world was divided over Trudeau’s stance on the Khalistan problem. While community leaders such as Jesse Singh of Sikhs of America and Dr Azad Kaushik of National Alliance of Indo Canadians disapproved of the Khalistan activism, many Canadian Sikhs living in Surrey in British Columbia, where Nijjar was gunned down by unidentified persons, backed the Canadian prime minister.
“We appreciate somebody finally vocalising what we’ve been saying for a very, very long time,” the Financial Times quoted a community organiser as saying on the condition of anonymity.
Currently, Trudeau’s Liberal Party shares power with the New Democratic Party led by Indian-origin lawmaker Jagmeet Singh, who is known to be a Khalistani sympathiser.
