Canadians outline their Priorities for the Upcoming Throne Speech: Immediate Health Measures to Fight the Pandemic (33%) and Getting Canadians Back to Work (26%)
Toronto, ON, September 21, 2020 – As the government puts the finishing touches on its upcoming Speech From the Throne, Canadians have weighed in on their priorities for the next session of parliament. According to a new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Global News, from among a list of twelve possible priorities, the top two for Canadians – by a significant margin – are immediate health measures to fight the pandemic (33%) and getting Canadians back to work (26%). Rounding out the top five are a plan to reduce the budget deficit (18%), putting together a longer-term universal basic income for all Canadians (17%), and reducing taxes (17%).
Further down the list of priorities, at least one in ten Canadians want the upcoming legislative session to focus on supporting small businesses at risk of closing due to the pandemic (14%), providing emergency relief for people who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic (13%), tightening immigration (12%) and supporting a green economic recovery (10%).
Fewer Canadians believe the top priorities for the government should be focusing on issues of race, inclusion and equality (7%), enhancing the education system (7%), infrastructure spending to create jobs (6%) or some other issue (6%).
Among voters of different parties, there are competing legislative agendas. Safely navigating these competing priorities could prove a difficult task for the government in a minority situation. Examining the top-five issue for voters of each party:
- Liberal voters’ priorities are health measures to fight the pandemic (43%), getting Canadians back to work (27%), emergency relief for people who have lost their jobs (19%), a universal basic income (18%), supporting small businesses (14%) and a green recovery (14%).
- Conservative voters’ priorities are getting Canadians back to work (35%), a plan to reduce the budget deficit (31%), health measures to fight the pandemic (25%), reducing taxes (25%) and tightening immigration (17%).
- NDP voters’ priorities are health measures to fight the pandemic (37%), a universal basic income (26%), focusing on issues of race, inclusion and equality (18%), getting Canadians back to work (18%) and supporting small businesses (16%).
- Bloc voters prioritize health measures (29%), reducing the deficit (25%), reducing taxes (21%), supporting small businesses (21%) and emergency relief for people who have lost jobs as a result of COVID-19 (19%).
- Green party voters priorities include health measures to fight the pandemic (30%), getting Canadians back to work (26%), supporting a green economic recovery (22%), a universal basic income (21%), and relief for people who have lost jobs due to COVID-19 (17%).
The chart below outlines the top 10 issues nationally and the relative priority placed on each issue within that region. Respondents were allowed to pick up to 2 priorities.
About the Study
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between September 11 and 14, 2020, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
For more information on this news release, please contact:
Darrell Bricker
CEO, Ipsos Global Public
Affairs +1 416 324 2001
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