Q3 Premier Ranking
A new Maru/Blue poll conducted for DART C-Suite Communicators indicates that if there was a skyward rise in the approval ratings for Canada’s premiers as they battled the early days of the pandemic outbreak, it would appear that the time for bringing those ratings back to earth has arrived.
Except for Manitoba’s premier Brian Pallister (+9), the quarterly measure of approval ratings of almost all of Canada’s premiers finds that every other provincial leader has slipped or fallen in their assessment. Those leading the pack with their personal approval ratings for this third quarter of 2020 assessment are British Columbia’s John Horgan (69% - 2), Quebec’s François Legault (63% -13), and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe (60% - 6).
Despite a slide in ratings, most premiers still enjoy healthy margins of approval which can play a role in going to the polls to secure a new mandate—witness Premier Blain Higgs’ September 14, 2020 majority victory in New Brunswick with a 55% (- 16) approval rating for this quarter. And should rumblings in the hallways that BC premier John Horgan might be tempted to soon seek a consultation with the electorate come true, the effort carries an approval tailwind rating of 69%, the highest in the land, at the outset. On the other hand, this snapshot of Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil (49% –14) finds him leaving politics on a high note after serving seventeen years in politics.
This quarter’s assessment also captures the debut of newly chosen Liberal leader and Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Andrew Furey, as he arrives on the scene with a 48% approval rating and continues to find Alberta’s embattled premier Jason Kenney behind at the bottom of the list (47% -1).