The Polls Telling It Like It Is

What's this? Findings from a new Ipsos Reid poll for Canwest News Service that cast a more favourable public light on the current Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper? Now isn't that interesting. The viewing public, glued to their television sets and computer screens have seen with their very own eyes an authentically human prime minister, a Stephen Harper whose enthusiasm for hockey is boundless, and well informed.

That beaming, ear-to-ear smile of pleasure and pride that reflected how every other Canadian felt. Kind of gets to you. That time out of just over a month did us all good.

Who among us actually missed Question Period and the slings and arrows that have become so stupidly routine, substituting for a working Parliament with duly elected lawmakers working earnestly together to enact useful laws and to ensure that the country's affairs are in order? Don't we all feel as refreshed in that lapse of prorogued parliament as we surely feel our Members of Parliament do, having experienced a break from their routine?

Oh, there was no break from routine? All those hard-working MPs were actually out there, conferring with their constituents, attending important meetings, planning strategy and doing what they're elected to do, barring sitting in Parliament? Good to know, but who would've thought otherwise, anyway? Don't we all know and acknowledge with praise the dedication of those whom we elect to do our bidding?

And hasn't it been utterly refreshing to be able to dedicate our attention to the truly important things happening in Canada during the month of February? Two weeks of Winter Olympics coverage non-stop and riveting, taking place in laid-back Vancouver. And isn't it just the icing on the cake of our gold-medal triumph that the fourth quarter of 2009 saw the country pulling out of its relatively mild-by-comparison recession?

All of which has surely done wonders for the manner in which our prime minister is now viewed. Right back in there with 37% popular support. While, alas, the Liberals are languishing at 29% and the NDP down to 16%. Greens? who're they? Oh, right; almost forgot, well, they've registered a popular support of 7%; would likely do better if they ditched their current leader. Yet one feels so sad for misunderstood Michael Ignatieff.

(How about that intriguing little story about NDP leader Jack Layton in Toronto, watching the Canadian men's hockey team pucking it out with the U.S. team, cheering with genuine joy at Wayne Gretzky's restaurant, while Stephen Harper sat beside the hockey great, and didn't have to forcibly haul his applauding arm out of the way to enable an unobstructed genuine photo for publication in the day's news...)

However, it appears that the voting public has a thing for experience; it sort of gives them confidence that he/she who owns it is ahead of the game, you know, hitting the ground running...? And Mr. Ignatieff, though he may have gained some ground, is still pedalling backward. The polls tell us that 46% of respondents felt that Stephen Harper comes out ahead in each of the leadership-attribute categories.

And when it came to questions of trust and competence, well there was Mr.Harper again outpolling Mr. Ignatieff two to one. Guess the public just didn't take all that much umbrage over the decision to prorogue parliament, despite the loud harrumphs of the Liberal party.