Ontarians have not forgotten Bob Rae's rocky time as their NDP premier, but he's the Liberal leadership candidate most likely to make them vote for the party, a CBC study suggests.

Of the 600 Ontarians surveyed by Environics Research Group, 26 per cent said they would be more likely to vote Liberal if Rae is chosen to head the federal Liberal party.

A survey for CBC found that Bob Rae has the most support of the four top leadership candidates, both in Ontario and Canada as a whole.
(Canadian Press)

That was the strongest support in Ontario of the four main federal Liberal leadership candidates the survey focused on. The Liberal party selects a new leader on Dec. 3.
 
Support inside the Greater Toronto Area was even stronger for Rae than across the province, according to the research group.

"The city of Toronto has really swung to the left over the last generation or so to the point where the Liberals and the NDP have such a stranglehold in Toronto," said Derek Leebosh, senior associate of public affairs at Environics.

However, nearly an equal number of those polled in Ontario, 24 per cent, said that if Rae was on the ballot for the Liberals they would be less likely to vote for the party.

Gerard Kennedy, who resigned as education minister in the Ontario Liberal government to run for the federal leadership, had the second-strongest support from those polled in the province, with 13 per cent more likely to vote Liberal if he headed the party.

Twelve per cent of Ontarians would support Liberals with Michael Ignatieff at the helm, while Stéphane Dion trailed behind with 10 per cent.

Poll results from across the country paint a different picture, with Rae garnering the most support, followed by Ignatieff, Dion, and Kennedy.

Across the country, 17 per cent of those surveyed said they were more likely to vote Liberal if Rae leads the party and 20 per cent said it was less likely.

The Ontario results of the survey came as good news for Rae supporters, including Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara, who said it confirmed what he's thought all along.

"People distinguish between Bob's leadership abilities and who he was as a politician and a statesman, and his party, which was clearly rejected in the 1995 election," said Sorbara.

Critics have often called Rae's conversion from the NDP to Liberal party and his legacy as Ontario's premier as the biggest weaknesses of his bid for federal Liberal leadership.

Rae held office from 1990 to 1995, a time marked by the worst economic downturn since the Depression. Some still harbour bad memories of the record deficits and high unemployment that plagued Rae's time as premier.

The poll was conducted between Nov. 2-6. The results are accurate to within four percentage points, 19 times out of 20.