KRUGGEL: Liberals tower over Conservatives by 15 points, Mainstreet Research

Mainstreet polled Canadians from January 31st until end of day Monday, February 2, 2026 and got results that more or less confirmed what Leger and Liaison saw in their polls: the Liberals are surging, the Conservatives are either stagnant or sinking.

 

When we have three polls saying basically the same thing we have a trend and we don't ignore trends. Party campaign staff do not ignore these trends either. They watch them carefully.

 

The numbers I am covering here are the all voters, and not the decided and leaning voters only categories from the poll. The latter is actually worse for the Conservatives. These are the, if you can call them that, better numbers.

  

NATIONAL NUMBERS: The current standings, nationally are as follows:

• 48% Liberal Party of Canada
• 34% Conservative Party of Canada
• 4% New Democratic Party of Canada
• 5% Bloc Quebecois
• 2% Green Party

 

REGIONAL NUMBERS:

The Liberals lead in every region except the Prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. In British Columbia they lead 45.8% to 34.7% for the Conservatives. They have a near 25 point lead in Ontario over the Conservatives. They lead the Bloc Quebecois 42.9% to 25.5%. Finally in Atlantic Canada they lead the Conservatives 72.1% to 18.1%.  

The gender and age demographics aren't any better. I won't cover all of these, as it just is redundant, but here's the highlights. The Liberals lead in every age group except the 35-49 and even there the Conservative lead is 0.4%. Among the 65+ group the Liberals lead 58% to 25.9%.  

When it comes to gender it is a statistical tie among men, and the Liberals hold a 54.9% to 28.8% lead among women over the Conservatives.

HOW THE LEADERS FARE:

Mark Carney has an overall approval rating of 66% and a disapproval of 33% or a net approval of 33 points. Pierre Poilievre has an approval rating of 42% with a disapproval of 54% or a net approval of -12 points. 

That's bad.  

It should be noted that 3 in 4 Canadians read or viewed Mark Carney's Davos' speech, and 76% of them said it made them view the Prime Minister much more favorably, or somewhat more favorably. The negative view on that was a mere 22%.  

DIRECTION OF THE COUNTRY:

When asked is Canada going in the right direction we have 54% saying yes, while 35% say no.

The trade and other agreements with China:

This was polled as well and the talks and subsequent agreements were viewed favorably by 67% of those polled with 28% being against them.

The lesson for the Liberals:

If this poll tells the Liberals anything it is as follows: let Mark Carney do what he's been doing because the public loves him and what he is doing.  There have been fears that Carney is spending a lot of time traveling to other countries like China, Qatar, the EU, and so forth. Yet, in all of those trips he's been doing government business talking trade, security agreements, and investment opportunities in Canada for foreign companies. The public clearly approves of that.  

The lesson for the Conservatives:

Last fall the Conservatives continued their policy of obstructing committees with filibusters, and procedural gimmicks to bring much of Parliament's work to a standstill. A good example of that was the stalled bail reform bill. It sat at committee for weeks not moving. That was also widely reported on and it made the Conservatives look unprofessional.

Here's what the public wants from the Conservatives: do your job as Members of Parliament and that means moving things though the Commons on a timely schedule. By all means critique things, provide amendments, but if you still don't get your way you have to accept it. Holding up the work of Parliament isn't something people want.

Two weeks ago Pierre Poilievre said he was now, finally, willing to work with the Liberals to move some bills through committees to come to votes.  

My View:

My view is that the public, a large segment of it at least wants Parliament to work as it was intended. They want to the legislation moving through from first reading, second reading, committees, and then third reading in a timely fashion.  

There is a legitimate time for obstructionism. That time is when an unpopular government puts forward terrible legislation that will result in genuine harm.  That's not happening right now.  

Regardless, the Conservatives approach to the Commons and the public has been a clear miss. With multiple polling firms showing them trailing the Liberals and losing ground they cannot continue doing what they have been doing.

The only good news from any of the polls is that Canadians by large majority do not want an election this year.

If one was held today, the Conservatives would be well under 80 elected MPs. The Liberals would be around 250.