Poll of 10,000 Canadians finds half consider U.S. to be an adversary and 45% feel worse off today than a year ago - National Post

While the poll found support for the way Prime Minister Mark Carney is handling U.S. President Donald Trump, people were more likely to worry the country is off track. Photo by Hyungcheol Park/PostmediaArticle contentCanadians are feeling relatively “jaunty” in the face of a trade war with a country they now view as an adversary and no friend, even while saying they feel worse off than they did a year ago, according to a new poll of more than 10,000 Canadian adults.

Most believe Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal government are best suited to handle trade negotiations and American designs on Canada, and most voters overall feel the Liberals are making headway and “doing some good things” — or they’re at least giving them the benefit of the doubt that they will.

But while Carney is polling stronger than his party, which isn’t the case for Pierre Poilievre, the high cost of living and other bread-and-butter issues were ranked as more personally pressing than the trade war.

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According to the poll, Carney leads on attributes like “understands the lives of people like me,” though only 32 per cent thought this was true of him, according to U.K.-based pollster, Lord Ashcroft Polls.

“If living standards continue to stagnate, it’s easy to see how an air of calm authority could, over time, turn into aloof technocracy,” Lord Michael Ashcroft, a British businessman, philanthropist and former deputy chair of the British Conservative party, wrote in a commentary for National Post.

While found 47 per cent of Canadians think the country is heading in the wrong direction compared to 40 per cent who believe Canada is on the proper path, the numbers are notably less pessimistic than in other western nations, Ashcroft wrote.

Article content“Overall, Canadians say the country is on the wrong track by a margin of just seven points — positively jaunty numbers compared to their equivalents in Europe and the U.S.”

Recent U.S. polls put the “wrong direction” camp ahead by 20 to 30 points, with a similar picture in Britain.