Most Canadians have heard about Freeland's resignation from Trudeau cabinet, new poll finds

The majority of Canadians heard about Chrystia Freeland's surprise resignation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet, according to a new poll from Abacus Data released Tuesday.

The majority of Canadians heard about Chrystia Freeland’s surprise resignation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, a new poll released Tuesday found.

According to the Abacus Data poll, 44 per cent of Canadians were following Freeland’s resignation either closely or fairly closely, while 39 per cent heard about it. Nineteen per cent of those polled said they did not hear about the news. The poll was conducted between 5 p.m. eastern Monday to Tuesday morning.

“In that short period of time, that's a pretty significant breakthrough for a story in Ottawa that is politics,” said Abacus Data CEO David Coletto in an exclusive interview on the new data with CTV’s Power Play on Tuesday.

The polling also said 67 per cent of Canadians think Trudeau should resign, while just 19 per cent believe he should stay on as Liberal leader.

“The fact that he could barely get one in five saying he should stay on is I think an indication for what we've known for a long time,” Coletto told host Vassy Kapelos. “The prime minister's own favourability, the satisfaction with his government and him personally were already at a pretty, pretty low.”

“I think yesterday's news just pushed a few extra people into the column that probably thought, okay, I think maybe time's up,” Coletto added.

On Monday – just hours before she was set to unveil the fall economic statement – Freeland announced she was stepping down as deputy prime minister and finance minister, dealing a major political blow to the prime minister.