Elizabeth May has the highest favourable ratings of all the national leaders, according to a new poll by Strategic Counsel. Here's the question asked: "What is your overall impression of . . ."
Elizabeth May? Favourable: 62%
Stephen Harper? Favourable: 54%
Stephane Dion? Favourable: 41%
Jack Layton? Favourable: 61%
Gilles Duceppe? Favourable: 62% (Quebec only)
Canadians faith in Conservatives eroding as economic fears grow
The number of Canadians that believe the country is on the right track has fallen significantly – from 60% in February to 48% in June. Concern about the economy has eroded Conservative support – as the party is supposed to excel at financial management yet Canadians are worried about the economy.
The poll by Strategic Counsel shows the Green Party at 10% tied with the Bloc for national support. The Conservatives are at 32% basically tied with the Liberals at 30% while the NDP is at 18%.
In vote rich Ontario, which has suffered thousands of job losses over the last 30 days, the Liberals lead the Conservatives 34% to 32%.
Green Economy Creates the More Jobs
The Green Party’s economic vision is will create more jobs than any other party. For instance, every dollar spent on energy efficiency creates five times more jobs than a dollar spent on nuclear power.
In Canada we have an opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of 'green collar jobs' – jobs that will be secure as they are in rapidly growing industries. For instance, installed wind power has been growing at 34% a year compounded annually for the last decade. And wind power will attract more than $500 billion of investment in North America by 2020.
Rapidly expanding markets include carbon trading, estimated to grow to $2 trillion by 2030, and green power financing, also estimated to grow to $2 trillion by 2030.
Rather than aggressively participating in these rapidly growing markets the Conservatives are choosing to subsidize sunset industries and companies like Ford and GM which are shedding thousands of jobs.
The federal Conservatives are also subsidizing oil and gas interests to the tune of $1.4 billion a year despite oil being a all time highs (last week it broke $139 a barrel).
And the nuclear industry has received $17 billion of government subsidy over the past few decades.
The Green Party, by contrast, would eliminate subsidies to energy inefficient industries and introduce policy to promote the growth of green sunrise industries. For instance, the tiny country of Denmark created 20,000 jobs over two decades focusing on wind power -- now one of the fastest growing industries world wide.
For the source of the poll see http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080611.POLL11/TPStory...