Gordon Campbell put on a brave face Sunday, responding to the increasing calls for his resignation and news that his approval rating is the lowest of any sitting premier in Canada.

"It's obviously not a place where anyone wants to be," a smiling Campbell told reporters outside a charity event in Burnaby. "I'd obviously like to be number one in the country. I'm number one in the wrong direction."

Only 12 per cent of the respondents in an Angus Reid poll released Friday said they approve of the B.C. Liberal Leader's performance.

A whopping 83 per cent said they don't trust him, an alarming crisis of confidence that Campbell called one of his "biggest disappointments."

"Popularity comes and goes, that's why you have to focus on doing what's right," he said. "I certainly understand why people feel the way they do, and frankly I feel awful that people feel let down and betrayed. That's not certainly what we were hoping they would feel."

Angus Reid vice-president Mario Canseco blamed Campbell's fall from grace on the introduction of the HST. "Back in early 2009, out of nine provincial premiers Campbell was number four," he said Saturday.

"Now he's the lowest in the country by far."

Canseco says public frustration over the tax has been focused on Campbell and B.C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen, which could make a change in leadership attractive to the party. "The future of the Liberals may depend on finding somebody who hasn't been tainted by the HST," he said.

Several Liberal backers, including Steve Forseth, former executive secretary of the Cariboo-Chilcotin riding, and former Williams Lake mayor Scott Nelson have already called on Campbell to resign -- but the premier says he's staying put.

"There has never been a unanimous support for me as leader. I'm disappointed by that, but I think that's actually, I think, the reflection of a strong party," he said.

"People elected me and gave me a job for four years. It's not sort of like you get to be there when it's fun and not there when it's tough."

Campbell also said he may run again in 2013.

"I'm going to run as long as I'm excited about what's taking place in the province,' he said. "We're on the verge of breaking though, I think, into a new century of opportunities."

The Angus Reid poll, conducted online from Sept. 8th to 9th, surveyed 805 randomly selected adults from across British Columbia. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 per cent.