Canadians and Americans Give Their Views on North American Energy Issues

The poll was released today as the Canada Institute of The Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars launches a two- day public dialogue in Calgary examining cross-border Canada/U.S. relations with a particular focus on continental energy issues.

Key findings indicate that two-thirds of both Canadians (66%) and Americans (67%) say that they are concerned about being personally affected by electricity shortages over the next five years. Virtually, the same number of Canadians (65%) are also concerned about gasoline shortages over the next five years, and this climbs to three quarters (76%) among Americans. Further, half of Canadians (51%) and two-thirds of Americans (66%) say they are concerned about shortages of natural gas or home heating oil over the next five years.

Despite these concerns, six-in-ten Canadians (61%) and Americans (60%) believe that governments and the energy industry are exaggerating about energy shortages to support their political or financial goals.

The poll also sought feedback on a range of issues related to the North American energy marketplace. Nearly three quarters (74%) of Americans believe that energy supplied by Canada can play an important part in providing the United States with long term national security. Just under half of Americans (46%) agree they would be willing to pay more for gasoline if they knew it came from Canada and not the Middle East. Security concerns appear to play a part in these sentiments. A majority of Americans (78%) are concerned that their countries' energy supplies will be targets for terrorist attacks. This compares to a minority of Canadians (44%) who are concerned that Canada's energy supplies will be targets for terrorist attacks.

While many Canadians (42%) believe that increasing the amount of energy Canada supplies to the United States is a good thing because of the economic and job creation benefits, a majority (56%) believe that doing so will undermine the long-term national independence of the country. Seven-in-ten Canadians (70%) are already concerned about foreign ownership of Canada's energy resources.

Americans and Canadians were asked how important they believe it is for their federal government to address a number of specific policy issues over the next 12 months. Out of the six issues that were tested in the poll (healthcare, the economy, the environment, energy supply, relations between Canada and the United States, and national security), the issue of energy supply ranked fourth in each country. Americans, however, were more likely to characterise this issue as being "very important" for their government to address than were Canadians (70% "very important" in U.S. vs. 57% "very important" in Canada). Americans also gave the issue of environment and pollution similar "very important" ratings to those they assigned to the matter of energy supply (66% "very important" for environment, 70% "very important" for energy supply). Canadians, by contrast, were more likely to assign "very important" ratings to environment and pollution (68% "very important") than they were to energy supply (57% "very important").

Canadians and Americans show limited knowledge of Canada's energy reserves. Across three true / false questions posed in each country, Americans and Canadians scored only a single correct answer on an overall basis. While, a majority of Canadians (73%) and Americans (60%) correctly stated that Canada is a major supplier of electricity to New England, New York, the Upper Midwest, the Pacific Northwest and California, less than three-in-ten Americans (28%) and only one-third of Canadians (33%) are aware that Canada has greater oil reserves than Iran, Iraq and every other country except Saudi Arabia. Similarly, less than two-in-ten Americans (15%) and less than three-in-ten Canadians (29%) are aware that Canada is the largest total supplier of imported oil and petroleum products to the United States.

The Canadian portion of the poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 1,059 adult Canadians and was fielded between February 16 and 19, 2004. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within + 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age / sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data. The U.S. portion of the poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 1,000 adult Americans and was fielded between February 20 and 22, 2004. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within + 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult US population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age / sex composition reflects that of the actual American population according to the 2001 Census data.

Please open the attached PDF to view the press release and detailed tables.

-30-

For more information on this news release, please contact

Dave Biette
Director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars
(202) 691-4133