Léger Marketing released their first research poll of 2021 this week, and the results don’t look good for Jason Kenney, premier of Alberta.
In an online poll conducted 30 December 2020–3 January 2021, 129 Alberta respondents (169 when weighted for census demographic data) were asked how satisfied they were with measures put in place by their provincial government to fight the pandemic.
The respondents overwhelmingly indicated a lack of support for how Jason Kenney and his UCP government have responded to the pandemic.
| Very dissatisfied | 35% |
| Somewhat dissatisfied | 35% |
| Somewhat satisfied | 17% |
| Very satisfied | 10% |
More than 3 times as many people indicated that they’re very dissatisfied with Alberta’s COVID-19 response than those who were very satisfied. And twice as many were somewhat unsatisfied than were somewhat satisfied.
Combined, Kenney saw 70% total dissatisfaction and only 27% satisfaction, with about 4% not answering. That’s more than 2 out of 3 people dissatisfied with the UCP pandemic response.
This, once again, puts Alberta at the bottom of the list when ranking the rest of Canada. The next lowest province was Ontario, at 57% satisfaction. In fact, Alberta was the only region in the poll to have more people indicating dissatisfaction than satisfaction.
Alberta’s 27% satisfaction rate is significantly lower than the 60% average satisfaction rate respondents across the country indicated regarding their respective provincial governments.
Kenney has seen a downward spiral in his COVID-19 satisfaction rating ever since he hit a high of 80% satisfied in June. At the start of the pandemic, he received a 74% satisfaction rating.
Most other premiers have also been trending downward, except Brian Pallister of Manitoba, who has been climbing in the biweekly poll lately, from 40% in the middle of November to 66% this week.
For Canada as a whole, 62% of 1,506 respondents indicated that they were satisfied with the federal government’s response to the pandemic. In Alberta, 52% indicated they were satisfied with the federal response and 51% were satisfied with their municipal response.
Interestingly, Alberta respondents gave the federal government and their respective municipal governments lower satisfaction ratings than respondents in any other region. So, it’s not just the provincial government they seem to be unhappy with.
However, their federal rating is only 10 points lower than the federal average, and their municipal rating is only 10 points lower than the federal average. Compare that to their provincial rating, which is 33 points lower than the federal average.
So, Albertans might be unhappy with everyone’s response to the pandemic, but they hate their province’s response the most. By far.
In case readers think the poll attracted too many supporters of the Alberta NDP, keep in mind that 47% of respondents indicated that they’d vote for the federal Conservative Party “if federal elections were held today”.
