Canadians agree with Trump on border, doubt Trudeau on tariffs: poll

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OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau may have had a positive meeting with the U.S. president-elect last week in Mar-a-Lago, but Canadians’ confidence in his ability to handle Donald Trump is low. A majority of Canadians also agreed with the president-elect that “Canada should take significant measures to increase border security,” according to a new Léger poll. 

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Just, 29 per cent of the poll’s respondents believe Trump’s concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking from Canada to the U.S. are unwarranted, 

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“They’ve got work to do. The border issue does present somewhat of an opportunity for the government to take some real deliberate action,” said Leger vice-president Andrew Enns.

Trump threatened last month to impose punitive 25-per-cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico when he takes office in January if the countries did not tighten up their borders to prevent drug smuggling and illegal migration to the U.S.

Leger found that less than a third of Canadians polled (31 per cent) said they are very or somewhat confident in the federal government’s ability to successfully handle the new U.S. president and his tariff proposals. The lack of confidence was prevalent across the country, in rural and urban areas, in every age group, and among both men and women.

Only Liberal voters (67 per cent) said they have confidence in the federal government’s ability to succeed. That number drops sharply among Conservative voters (19 per cent). 

“Canadians are deeply dissatisfied with the government. The popularity of the prime minister and his party is suffering, and I think that… they’re just not feeling confident about how the prime minister is going to measure up against the incoming president,” said Enns.  

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But voters are very worried about the impact of Trump’s tariffs, the poll found. Eight in 10 Canadians (79 per cent) said they’re concerned they will lead to higher inflation in Canada. A similar number (78 per cent) said they think the tariffs will increase the likelihood of a recession.

Since then, Prime Minister Trudeau’s government has tried to reassure Canadians not to panic. Last week he attended an unannounced dinner with Donald Trump at his private Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago. Also there wasDominic LeBlanc, the minister in charge of border security, and several of Trump’s cabinet picks, including his candidate for “border czar,” Tom Homan.

The polling was done between Nov. 29 and Dec. 1 with a sample of 1,532 Canadians via an online panel. While margins of error can’t be applied to online panels, a probability sample of this size would be plus or minus 2.50 per cent, 19 times out of 20. 

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com 

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