Kinew flips script for Manitoba, ranks most popular among Canada's premiers, new poll suggests

Manitoba has Canada's most popular premier, after a string of surveys in which the province's past leaders ranked dead last, a new poll suggests.

In the poll from the Angus Reid Institute, 57 cent of respondents said they approve of Kinew's leadership.

He's only held the position since the Oct. 3 election, when he led the NDP to a majority government.

"It's been quite a while since we've seen Manitoba's premier scoring this high," said political analyst Chris Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba.

"This poll, over 50 per cent of Manitobans scoring Wab Kinew in a favourable light, is quite remarkable."

Kinew's election victory unseated the Progressive Conservative Party, which had held two consecutive majority governments.

That prompted PC Leader Heather Stefanson to announce on election night that she intends to resign her position once the party chooses a successor sometime in the new year.

During her tenure, Stefanson had the lowest approval rates of all provincial leaders, ranging from 21-28 per cent.

When her predecessor, Brian Pallister, stepped down in late 2021, he went out with the worst approval rating in the country at 32 per cent.

But like Kinew, Pallister enjoyed a high approval rating when he was first elected, with 53 per cent in 2016.

Kinew's post-election honeymoon is built on promises more than performance so far, both the Angus Reid analysis and Adams suggested.

The Angus Reid survey cited his throne speech, in which he promised to repair the health-care system, address the rising cost of living, convert thousands of homes to geothermal energy and make Orange Shirt Day a statutory holiday, among other priorities.

"It is the period in which people are glowing with their admiration of this new government, but it's very early," Adams said.

"Right now Manitobans haven't had a chance to see whether these promises and commitments will be carried through."

Kinew's rating was just ahead of Manitoba's neighbour, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who went up four percentage points from his previous rank, to sit at 54 per cent.

But, Adams said, 16 per cent of Manitoba's respondents said they weren't sure how to rate Kinew. That's the highest uncertainty across all of the provinces.

Moe, by comparison, had more "strongly committed ratings," with just three per cent of respondents saying they aren't sure about him, Adams said.

Quebec Premier François Legault was last in approval ratings among the nine leaders at 31 per cent, dropping 16 points.

This most recent poll was conducted online from Nov. 24 to Dec. 1, using a representative randomized sample of 3,749 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum.

These types of polls do not have a margin of error, but a probability sample of that same size would have a margin of error of two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The sample size in Manitoba was 291, which would have a margin of error of plus-or-minus six percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

"Two hundred and ninety-one is not a huge sample, but it gives you a sense of where things are going," Adams said.

The survey was self-commissioned and paid for by the Angus Reid Institute.