The number of Canadians who shifted from supporting the invocation of the Act to opposing it far outweighs those who said the opposite.
According to a new Mainstreet Research survey, there has been a significant shift in Canadian public opinion on the Emergencies Act following the inquiry.
Broken down by age, the number of people who previously supported the use of the Act but now oppose it is far higher than the number of people who previously opposed the use of the Act, and now support it.
Among people age 18-34, 15% switched from supporting the Act to opposing it, while just 2% went the other way.
Among people age 35-49, 11% went from supporting the Act to opposing it, while 5% went from opposing it to supporting it.
Among people age 50-64%, 19% went from supporting the Act to opposing it, while 4% went the other way.
And among people age 65+, 22% went from supporting the Act to opposing it, while 8% went the other way.
The support the Act vs oppose the Act responses now breakdown this way:
18-34: 34% support, 66% oppose.
35-49: 44% support, 55% oppose.
50-54: 49% support, 51% oppose.
65+: 51% support, 49% oppose.
The Conservatives are favoured by a strong plurality of voters between 18 and 34, a poll shows. It’s a trend that sets Canada apart from other peer democracies.
Younger voters are also much more likely to oppose Ottawa’s use of the Emergencies Act.https://t.co/q1BYFpSmBp pic.twitter.com/Jux0nVWYjA
— iPolitics (@ipoliticsca) December 14, 2022
A big shift
This is a significant shift in public sentiment, and it speaks to the fact that the Inquiry featured multiple instances of top officials admitting that the Freedom Convoy did not meet the threshold of a national security threat, and the legal threshold as defined by CSIS was not met.
For the government to then simply make up a new threshold to ‘justify’ the use of authoritarian government power is something that should rightfully disturb the Canadian People, and this survey demonstrates that many are indeed disturbed.
The age breakdown is interesting as well, and shows the ongoing potential realignment of younger voter allegiances in Canada.
For many young Canadians, strict lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and long-term restrictions demonstrated that Canada is much less free than they had presumed, and that there wasn’t much that was ‘Liberal’ or ‘Democratic’ about the Liberals & NDP respectively.
With the CPC now led by a younger, pro-freedom leader, many young Canadians are increasingly well-inclined towards the Conservative Party, and are pushing back against Canada’s authoritarian turn under the Liberals.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – YouTube
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