Support For War In Afghanistan Plummets

Toronto, ON - Support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped sharply over the past month, according to a new Ipsos Reid national survey conducted on behalf of CanWest/Global.

Currently, 44% of Canadians say they support the "use of Canadian troops for security and combat efforts against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan" (21% strongly support). More than half (54%) oppose these ongoing operations.

And, if they knew that the job in Afghanistan wouldn't be completed until 2009 (the current length of Canada's commitment to these efforts), opposition to the war rises to a full majority (58%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from October 31st-November 2nd, 2006. For this survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 752 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the aggregate results are considered accurate to within 1773.6 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 each sub-grouping of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to Census data. Please open pdf factum and detailed tables for full tabular results.