Poll: Tories Losing Support From Women

I wonder why.

A new poll by Decima Research finds that the Conservative Party is losing support amongst women voters. This poll was taken before Peter Mackay's rude comment about Belinda Stronach.

The Decima Research survey, released Friday to The Canadian Press, points to a decline in Tory support by women voters since mid-July. The Tories had led the Liberals among women since the January election, but that changed in late summer when the Liberals overtook them.

A rolling three-week average between Sept. 28-Oct. 16 suggested 34 per cent of female voters supported the Liberals, 28 per cent the Tories, and 16 per cent the NDP.
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Pollster Bruce Anderson speculates the dip in support is linked to a variety of issues, among them the government's positions on the Middle East and broad social issues.

"Anytime there's speculation about same-sex marriage being put on the agenda, speculation they're not going to have a very progressive environmental policy, the Conservatives are going to pay a bigger price among women - and among young people and urban voters - for that kind of situation than they would among any other voter group," Anderson said.

Overall, the poll echoed another released earlier this week that suggests the governing Conservatives and the Liberals are in a dead heat nationally. Among decided and leaning voters, 32 per cent said they would vote Conservative, compared to 30 per cent for the Liberals, 15 per cent for the NDP, 11 per cent for the Bloc Quebecois and 10 per cent for the Greens.

At the rate these Conservatives are shredding women's rights, they can expect to lose many more in the coming months.

It's interesting to note that when the aggrieved MP Belinda Stronach posed this question on Friday during Question Period regarding the cuts to the Status of Women's agancy: 'Why does the government insist on turning its back on women's rights and the groups who advocate on their behalf?, she was promptly put in her place - which would still be in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant according to Conservative Lynne Yelich (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development):

I would like to remind the member that it was a Conservative government that gave women the right to vote in 1917, a former Conservative government. The first female cabinet minister was in the Diefenbaker cabinet. The first female premier in British Columbia was from a Conservative government.

To which Stronach replied:

Mr. Speaker, may I also remind the House that they also took the word “progressive” out of the name of the party.

Game. Set. Match to Stronach.

And I'd like to remind Lynne Yelich that a woman's right to vote in Canada did not come without a very long struggle that was fought every step of the way by governments and courts run by men from the beginning of Confederation (and even prior to that) until the time women actually did win that battle, much to the consternation of many.