The Governor General, in making a judgment call on whether an alternative Prime Minister--in that case, Mr. Dion--could command the confidence of the House of Commons, would not be governed by Gallup polls. Polling is not a good gauge of what people in high office should be doing for the will of the people. It's based on all kinds of vagaries of the day. It's not a good way of testing the “will” of the people.
What the Governor General would have to be very clear about is whether that government would have the confidence of the House of Commons. That's the licence to govern, not a day-to-day referendum of the people, but would a majority of the members of the House of Commons support it. That's the consideration.
As someone who was involved in advising the Governor General, the Gallup polls, steamed, I might say, by some tremendous publicity about the evil of coalitions, which are almost the norm in the parliamentary world, would not be considered an accurate view of the will of the people.