Robertson has lowest approval rating among big city mayors: poll

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – What with the great Vancouver salt crisis, bike lanes, and housing and affordability issues — Gregor Robertson is certainly no stranger to the headlines. But despite the controversy, Vancouver’s mayor is still getting some support from the majority of voters in the city.

But a new poll finds that’s not good enough to lift his approval rating from last place among the rest of Canada’s big city mayors.

 

There is some good news for Robertson as Mainstreet Research finds he has a 50 per cent approval rating in Vancouver. The pollster’s president Quito Maggi calls it a good score. “In the greater context of approvals for politicians, this being a positive net number, meaning the total approval minus total disapproval is still a positive numbers, it’s still a very, very good number for the mayor. [But] on this particular list, at this particular time, he happens to be at the bottom of that list. It should be taken with a grain of salt.”

Maggi says overall, every Canadian mayor they polled has a net positive approval rating although some leaders are faring radically better than others. “In Edmonton and Calgary see a rise in their popularity. Since the last time we did their approvals, oil has gone up about $15 a barrel, so most politicians in Alberta we can track their popularity based on the price of oil,” adds Maggi.

The mayor of Winnipeg saw a drop of 10 points, while tops on the list is Ottawa and its mayor Jim Watson with an approval rating of 79 per cent, followed by Saskatoon’s Charlie Clark.

“We noticed that Canadians are in a good mood early in the New Year. Most of these approvals were up and we’re seeing some optimism as 2017 began and in the case of Mayor Robertson, we’re seeing his approval and disapprovals being highly polarized among most of the other mayors we tested. In the case of Mayor Robertson, we’re seeing a huge component of strong approval at over 40 per cent.”

Maggi adds as Robertson faces issues like the approval of the controversial Kinder Morgan pipeline project, opinions of his job performance seem to mirror that becoming further polarized.

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