Though Carney Still Leads in Dealing with Trump, Poilievre Gaining Momentum

When thinking about aspects of navigating the troubled waters of Canada’s relationship with the United States under President Donald Trump, Canadians continue to prefer Carney as best leader to negotiate, unite Canadians to make the country less dependent on the US, and have the skills needed to help Canadians deal with economic hardship owing to Trump’s tariffs. Poilievre, for his part, leads on being the most likely to roll over and accept whatever President Trump demands. However, compared to March 20th, Carney’s lead on these issues has softened. More (+5 pts) would now describe him as likely to accept whatever Trump demands, and more see Poilievre as the leader who could unite Canadians (+6 pts) and who has the skills needed to help Canadians through economic hardship (+3 pts).

Nearly half (46%) of Canadians say that lower income taxes should be implemented in order to manage the economy and support Canadians in light of US tariffs, followed by 41% who call for addressing affordability issues more generally. Fewer call for a temporary break from HST/GST (29%), universal basic income (24%), tax relief for small businesses (20%), and increased unemployment assistance (16%) as preferred measures to support Canadians.

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between April 8th and 10th, 2025, on behalf of Global News.  For this survey, a sample of n=1,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online, via the Ipsos I-Say panel and non-panel sources, and respondents earn a nominal incentive for their participation. Quotas and weighting were employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos polls which include non-probability sampling is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians 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. Ipsos abides by the disclosure standards established by the CRIC, found here: https://canadianresearchinsightscouncil.ca/standards/

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Darrell Bricker, PhD
CEO, Ipsos Global Public Affairs
+1 416 324 2001
[email protected]

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