Late last week, Canadian marketing firm Léger Marketing released their latest survey results measuring public support regarding government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And there’s some good news for the UCP.
According to the report, public support for the UCP’s response to the pandemic has slowly been increasing in 2022, increasing from just 26% in December to 32% in February. It was 28% in January.
Not only that, but Jason Kenney is no longer the premier with the lowest approval rating for the pandemic response; that lies with Scott Moe, who is only marginally lower than Kenney, at 31%
Here’s how Kenney’s support looked when broken down by strength of support:
| Dec 2021 | Jan 2022 | Feb 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very dissatisfied | 47% | 40% | 38% |
| Somewhat dissatisfied | 22% | 24% | 27% |
| Total dissatisfied | 69% | 64% | 65% |
| Somewhat satisfied | 21% | 23% | 27% |
| Very satisfied | 5% | 5% | 5% |
| Total satisfied | 26% | 28% | 32% |
Now, this isn’t the first time Kenney has seen a rise in satisfaction among survey participants. Between September and November 2021, support increased from 17% to 35%.
But then it started to drop again. So, this rise might not mean much in the long run, as he could see another drop in support, especially if cases and hospitalizations rise again because of another variant of COVID-19.
In the short-term, however, this small boost may be just what he needs heading into his leadership review on 9 April.
Keep in mind that even though his support has climbed to 32% this year so far, there are still 65% of respondents who aren’t satisfied with his party’s response to the pandemic.
So, basically 2 out of every 3 respondents are dissatisfied with the UCP government’s response to the pandemic.
In fact, there are 7.6 times more people who are very dissatisfied with the UCP’s response compared to those who are very satisfied with it.
Kenney hasn’t been above 50% support since the end of 2020, and he hasn’t been above 40% since last summer.
Léger surveyed 136 people in Alberta for these results. The national sample was 1,546 respondents and had a margin of error of 2.49%, 19 times out of 20.
