A recent Angus Reid poll suggests an increase in the amount of people who believe the U.S. is no friend to Canada, leading up to when our southern neighbour implemented its wave of tariffs this week.
At the start of March, the amount of people who say the Canadian government should treat the U.S. as a potential threat to Canadian interests rose to 38 per cent—that is a 14-point increase from the January data.
The latest poll found 13 per cent of Canadians believe our government should approach the U.S. as an enemy of our country, a 10-point jump from January.
Meanwhile, 15 per cent of people said the U.S. should be treated as a valued partner and ally, eight per cent said the U.S. should be treated on friendly terms and 24 per cent said our government should treat our southern neighbour with caution.
Researchers collected the latest data via an online survey from Feb. 27 to March 3, meaning that people answered the survey ahead of when U.S president Donald Trump put the 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods (with that 10 per cent tariffs for energy carve-out) into effect. As of today, some of those tariffs have already been put on pause, and the situation continues to evolve.
Research associate Jon Roe said, overall, Canadians wanted Trump to back down with no tariffs enacted.
61 per cent of survey takers agreed him backing down would be a win for Canada, while four per cent said getting a concession of lower tariffs would be a win.
On this question, Roe said it was interesting to note the seven-point increase of people who believe there is no win, with 28 per cent of people agreeing with this idea at the start of March.
“Over the past two months there is a growing number of Canadians who believe there is no winning this trade war, we’re going to come out of this damaged in some way economically, or whatever that is.”
Leading up to Trump implementing the 25 per cent tariffs, the data suggests Canadians mainly felt angry (55 per cent), betrayed (37 per cent), anxious (29 per cent) and scared (15 per cent).
Fewer people reported positive or neutral feelings, with 10 per cent of survey-takers describing themselves as indifferent. Nine per cent reported feeling thoughtful, while happy or excited were each labels that applied to three per cent of people.
Jon Roe discussed more about this data with Adam Stirling on CFAX 1070 today (March 6):