Michael Ignatieff waffles and the polls respond

The latest weekly CBC/EKOS poll released Thursday, September 23 puts the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals in the voter intention race, with 37.0 % of those surveyed giving the nod to the Tories, compared to 29.9 % going to the Liberals. Clearly this is good news for the Conservatives, especially now that the Liberals are threatening to defeat the government in a confidence vote. Even more encouraging is the strong upward trend for the Conservatives. The start of which coincided precisely with Michael Ignatieff’s announcement that he intends to defeat the government at the first possible opportunity. Prior to this change of strategy, the Liberals and Conservatives were in a dead heat. Now the shift in voter intentions has taken off. The signal is loud and clear, Canadians are tired of the Liberal leader’s political gamesmanship.

These poll results also show that Canadians would prefer to continue with the Conservative government’s plan for economic recovery rather than risk a coalition government of Liberal, NDP and Bloq MPs lead by Michael Ignatieff. A leader that reverses his position on issues so often that its hard to know from one day to the next where he stands. One day he signs a formal coalition agreement with other opposition parties, the next day he says he would never do such a thing. One day he supports the stimulus measures in the last budget, the next day he votes against it. One day he’s opposed to the HST, the next day he’s not. The latest case being his reversal that cleared the way for former cabinet minister Martin Cauchon to run for nomination in the Montreal riding of Outremont after he'd already decided to reserve this nomination for executive Nathalie Le Prohon. Michael Ignatieff reverses his position so often and with such speed that if GM Canada decided to manufacture a sports car in his honour, it would have 5 speeds, 1 forward the rest in reverse.