{"id":3655,"date":"2008-10-01T14:57:13","date_gmt":"2008-10-01T18:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/10\/01\/election-2008-harper-best-for-cities\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:48:08","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:48:08","slug":"election-2008-harper-best-for-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/10\/01\/election-2008-harper-best-for-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"ELECTION 2008: Harper best for cities?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3165\/2666654949_5142ac4d96.jpg?v=0\" width=\"500\" height=\"328\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In spite of his government&#8217;s <a href=\"httphttp:\/\/www.thestar.com\/federalelection\/article\/509572\">outright contempt<\/a> for Canada&#8217;s cities, Stephen Harper&#8217;s Conservatives are, brace yourself, ranked the best party to deal with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153city portfolio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Canadians, according to a poll released this morning by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.angusreidstrategies.com\/\">Angus Reid Strategies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With 35% of those surveyed saying they thought the Conservatives would do the best job for urban Canada, the NDP and the Liberals lagged behind at 26% and 15% respectively. Although Angus Reid&#8217;s Luke Marshall suggested that the Conservative&#8217;s lead on this issue could be attributed to its overall standing in the polls, he also pointed out that participants in the poll said that the Conservatives were best at managing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153crime\/public safety, roads and highways, jobs\/unemployment, property taxes, housing prices, buildings and bridges, and urban sprawl\u00e2\u20ac\u009d aspects of the urban agenda. The NDP was perceived to be best on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153poverty, public transit, overcrowding\/density, and parks and green space.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Meanwhile the Liberals were only seen to be best at managing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153utilities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Also problematic for those pushing the urban agenda is that only 1% of those surveyed said that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153municipal issues\/cities\u00e2\u20ac\u009d top their list of issues in this election. One percent is on par with &#8220;aboriginal issues, agriculture\/farming and Afghanistan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d according to the poll. The economy (33%), environment (15%) and health care (14%) were, predictably, the top three issues for Canadians.<\/p>\n<p>The news isn&#8217;t all bad. Four issues often grouped under the urban agenda heading are top of mind for a significant portion of voters. Crime\/public safety, roads and highways, poverty and jobs\/unemployment are all top of mind for 13% of voters. Utilities, property taxes, public transit, housing, and buildings and bridges sit between seven and nine percent.<\/p>\n<p>Angus Ried&#8217;s Marshall says this means that though Canadians generally care about the issues at the heart of the cities agenda, the cities agenda as a whole means relatively little to them individually.<\/p>\n<p>This past weekend Angus Ried put out a poll showing the NDP and Liberals tied at 21%, behind the Conservatives which sat in majority territory at 40%. According to the pollster, almost half of the Liberal vote from 2006 has gone to Harper, a quarter to Jack Layton and the last quarter is split between the Green Party and undecided. Marshall says this indicates the Liberal vote may actually be collapsing because it is rare for so many Liberals to temporarily park their votes with either of the other two major parties.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photograph by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/midwinterphoto\/\">midwinterphoto<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In spite of his government&#8217;s outright contempt for Canada&#8217;s cities, Stephen Harper&#8217;s Conservatives are, brace yourself, ranked the best party to deal with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153city portfolio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Canadians, according to a poll released this morning by Angus Reid Strategies. With 35% of those surveyed saying they thought the Conservatives would do the best job for<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/10\/01\/election-2008-harper-best-for-cities\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;ELECTION 2008: Harper best for cities?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4037,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3679,10424,10422,10423,457,1289,734,10425,53,39,2092],"class_list":["post-3655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-afghanistan","tag-angus-reid","tag-angus-reid-strategies","tag-angus-ried","tag-canada","tag-green-party","tag-jack-layton","tag-luke-marshall","tag-parliament-hill","tag-polls","tag-stephen-harper"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ELECTION 2008: Harper best for cities? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/10\/01\/election-2008-harper-best-for-cities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ELECTION 2008: Harper best for cities? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In spite of his government&#8217;s outright contempt for Canada&#8217;s cities, Stephen Harper&#8217;s Conservatives are, brace yourself, ranked the best party to deal with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153city portfolio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Canadians, according to a poll released this morning by Angus Reid Strategies. 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- Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/10\/01\/election-2008-harper-best-for-cities\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"ELECTION 2008: Harper best for cities? - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"In spite of his government&#8217;s outright contempt for Canada&#8217;s cities, Stephen Harper&#8217;s Conservatives are, brace yourself, ranked the best party to deal with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153city portfolio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Canadians, according to a poll released this morning by Angus Reid Strategies. 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