Premier Kathleen Wynne’s approval rating has hit an all-time low, dropping to 12 per cent in a recent Angus Reid Institute poll.
The poll found that 81 per cent of respondents disapprove of the job that Wynne is doing as premier while just 12 per cent approve of it. A further seven per cent said they were unsure.
The result marks the sixth straight decline for Wynne’s approval rating in Angus Reid polls. The last time the firm released a poll in December, Wynne’s approval rating stood at 16 per cent.
The low approval rating also puts Wynne in a class of her own among Canadian premiers.
The least popular premier outside of Wynne was Newfoundland’s Dwight Ball, who had an approval rating of 20 per cent.
“In the time that we have been tracking premier approval ratings over the better part of 10 years there is only one other premier that has had a lower approval rating than Kathleen Wynne,” Angus Reid Institute Executive Director Shachi Kurl told CP24 on Friday. “It was BC premier Gordon Campbell at nine per cent in the fall of 2010. His career lasted about two days longer after that poll came out.”
The poll was conducted between March 6 and 13, which is after Wynne announced a plan to cut hydro rates by as much as 25 per cent.
Speaking with reporters on Friday, Wynne said that “people haven’t seen the impact on their bills yet” and indicated that the move could have an impact on her poll numbers once the cut takes effect this summer.
Kurl, however, told CP24 that Wynne’s political future, at least in the short term, will depend more on the support of her caucus than the public at large.
“There will be a lot of phone calls and conversations among donors, organizers, the so-called backroom boys and girls that are part of the Liberal machine this weekend and they will be doing a bit of a gut check and say ‘Is this the best leader we’ve got? Is anyone else waiting the wings? Can we still raise money whatever Premier Wynne’s numbers are at?’ If the answer to that is all yes she will tough it out and see what happens in the next election but if any of the answers are no we could be in for some drama,” she said.
Earlier on Friday, former Liberal MPP Greg Sorbara told CP24’s Stephen LeDrew that the Liberals cannot win the 2018 election if Wynne is still leader. Sorbara had previously told the CBC that the Liberal party would be better off if Wynne resigned prior to the election.
The online poll of 5,404 Canadians is considered accurate to within two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
