Canadians are torn about whether to put their elbows up or down in U.S. trade war: poll

Calgary Herald

2 days ago

'When we first started to feel the brunt of President Trump's trade aggression, you know, Canadians were much more bullish, much more aggressive in terms of retaliation,' Enns noted.
'The temperature has come down and you've got maybe a bit of sober second thought from Canadians saying that we have to figure out a way out of this and it's not going to be with ah 'I hit you, you hit me, I hit you back' kind of thing.'
Canadians, however, aren't overwhelmingly supportive of opening specific industries to American competition.
Roughly half the respondents said they were willing to allow American-owned airlines to fly domestic routes in Canada or authorize U.S. telecommunication companies to operate on Canadian soil.
Even fewer (33 per cent) are willing to loosen supply management rules protecting the Canadian dairy industry to let in more U.S. products.
'I would not say there's a groundswell of support and a sort of blank cheque for Carney, for the prime minister, to open up negotiations on these things,' Enns said. 'But it is kind of interesting that there's about half the population that, all things equal, think 'I'm open to hearing what that would look like'.'
Carney's Liberals also appear to have peaked in their popularity with Canadians this summer, the poll suggests.
After months of rising support since the April 28 election, the Liberals' popularity dipped for the first time, dropping two points to 46 per cent since July 7, the poll says.
But Carney's party still holds a significant lead over Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives (36 per cent) and the NDP, led by interim head Don Davies (six per cent), who both saw their parties' support increase by one point over the past month.
Total satisfaction in the Carney government also dipped slightly by one point though it remains high at 54 per cent.
Enns says it's too early to say Carney's honeymoon with Canadians is over, although the data suggest the prime minister may have found his popularity ceiling.
'We may have seen the high watermark for Liberal support, and as we head into the fall and some of these issues start to become more pointed… I would imagine that would be an interesting juncture for the government,' Enns said.
'It wouldn't surprise me to see a very gradual narrowing of that gap' between Liberals and Conservatives come the fall, he added.
The polling firm Leger surveyed 1,617 respondents as part of an online survey conducted between Aug. 1-4. Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not use random sampling of the population.
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