Coalition acceptable to most Canadians

Canadian News Wire:

Ottawa, April 15 /CNW/ - A new survey conducted by global marketing and public opinion research firm TNS Canada shows that despite all the talk about coalitions, they aren't as daunting a prospect to Canadians as they have been made out to be. The survey asked Canadians about a number of plausible scenarios in the event that no party wins a majority of seats in the upcoming Federal election.

However, when asked about the possibility of parties forming a coalition, a majority of Canadians (57%) would find it completely or somewhat acceptable if the party with the most seats forms a coalition government with another party. In addition, even in the absence of perfect knowledge of parliamentary tradition, 1 in 2 Canadians (49%) would find it acceptable if two or more parties, none of which obtained the most seats individually, would form a coalition in order to form a majority government. This is compared to only one in three (33%) would find this scenario completely or somewhat unacceptable.

In terms of which parties Canadians would prefer to see form a coalition, a prospective Liberal - NDP coalition garnered the highest preference, at 28%, followed by a prospective Conservative - NDP coalition (24%). Preference drops dramatically for any prospective coalition which includes the Bloc Québécois:

• Liberal-NDP-Bloc : 8%
• Liberal-Bloc - 5%
• Conservative - Bloc - 3%
• Conservative - NDP- Bloc - 3%.

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