Brad Wall's popularity drops in wake of unpopular budget
Saskatchewan premier's approval rating drops to 46%, with 45% disapproval
Premier Brad Wall's popularity took a significant hit after the provincial budget was released last month, according to a Mainstreet poll commissioned by Postmedia.
Forty-six per cent of residents who were polled approve of the job Wall is doing, 45 per cent disapprove and the remaining nine per cent were undecided. Wall had 52 per cent approval in October.
"Driving these numbers are the impact of the budget," Mainstreet vice-president David Valentin said in a release.
Wall took his biggest hits in Saskatoon and Regina, while rural residents showed higher approval ratings.
The budget itself had an approval rating of 26 per cent. Forty-five per cent of people polled said they disapproved of the budget. More than half of those — 51 per cent — disapproved of the government scrapping STC, while 18 per cent were in favour.
The biggest disapproval came from the grants in lieu of tax program being cut, which saw a 63 per cent disapproval and just 11 per cent approved, while 26 per cent weren't sure.
The poll was conducted March 30 and 31 and 1,704 people were surveyed, using landlines and cellphones. A random sample of this size would yield a margin of error of +/- 2.37 per cent, 19 times out of 20.