A new poll suggests that while nearly two-thirds of Canadians disagree with the ongoing Wet’suwet’en solidarity blockades that are interrupting rail and truck traffic, three-quarters of Canadians also think the federal government needs to act immediately to address quality of life issues affecting the country’s Indigenous people.
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On Wednesday, Ipsos published a new poll conducted exclusively for Global News about the demonstrations that revolve around the construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern B.C. and which have gripped the country for weeks.
The survey results show 61 per cent of respondents disagree that the protesters blockading key transportation corridors are conducting justified and legitimate protests, compared to 39 per cent who said that they believe the protests are legitimate and justified.
“It’s the first poll that we’ve ever done on this issue,” Ipsos Public Affairs CEO Darrell Bricker told Global News. “The first takeaway is that Canadians are not pleased to see ports and railways blocked.
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“In fact, they so don’t agree with it that almost half of Canadians — actually better than half, 53 per cent — actually think the police should move in and do something about it.”
But Bricker noted that the numbers indicating strong views about protester tactics that are disrupting the national economy appear to come with somewhat of a caveat.
“What we also see in the polling is that… [75 per cent] of the people we interviewed are saying that something needs to be done about the plight of the Aboriginal community and that the government hasn’t performed particularly well on this,” he said.
“So there’s some understanding, I would say, for the plight of the Indigenous community, but the blocking of natural infrastructure is not necessarily supported.”
Tensions began to rise significantly on the Wet’suwet’en Nation on New Year’s Day when some members of the community served Coastal GasLink, the company that’s trying to build the pipeline, with an eviction notice, saying its workers were “currently trespassing” on their unceded territory.
A day earlier, the B.C. Supreme Court granted Coastal GasLink an injunction that called for the removal of any obstructions, including cabins, on any roads, bridges or work sites the company had been authorized to use.
Coastal GasLink says it has signed agreements with the elected councils of all 20 First Nations along the path of its $6.6-billion pipeline — including the Wet’suwet’en. However, some of the nation’s hereditary chiefs have been vehemently opposed to the project out of environmental concerns.
The ensuing blockades by protesters expressing solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who oppose the project have led to significant disruptions in parts of the country, and just last week, CN shut down its operations in Eastern Canada as a result.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau aborted his plans abroad and returned to Canada to deal with the crisis. An emergency debate was held about the impasse in the House of Commons on Tuesday night.
When asked about the government’s duty to consult with Indigenous communities on resource development projects, the poll results published on Wednesday show that only 56 per cent of respondents agree that Indigenous people are adequately consulted, and 44 per cent disagree.
“I think Canadians are still trying to sort through what is happening here,” Bricker said.
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“They are trying to reconcile two things in their minds: one of them is a legitimate concern that Canadians have about the situation and the plight of Aboriginal people in this country — it’s quite clear that there’s a fairly deep feeling that something needs to be done on that… but on the other hand, even though they feel that this is an important thing that needs to be dealt with, they don’t feel that protesting by shutting down rail lines and shutting down ports is the correct response.”
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Bricker also noted that the poll indicates there’s a contrast among different regions in Canada in terms of how the events are being viewed.
For example, support for police intervention is highest in Alberta (69 per cent) and B.C. (68 per cent), while opposition to the use of law enforcement to end the blockades is highest in Quebec (38 per cent) followed by Ontario (29 per cent).
“This is one of the only issues I’ve seen in which British Columbia and Alberta actually align — when natural resources are concerned,” Bricker said, also noting the poll results suggest “younger Canadians are more aligned with the Aboriginal community.”
Bricker said while this marks Ipsos’ first poll on the latest blockades in Canada, his company did surveys related to Idle No More blockades in 2013 and revisited those figures after gathering data for its latest survey.
Bricker noted that with his experience in polling, he believes that “the longer that things go on like this, the more the pressure builds on the government.”
“Public order is one of those things that is really regarded as a primary responsibility for the government and to the extent that… [the public] perceives that things are out of control, the worse it gets for the government.”
Exclusive Global News Ipsos polls are protected by copyright. The information and/or data may only be rebroadcast or republished with full and proper credit and attribution to “Global News Ipsos.”
METHODOLOGY: This Ipsos poll was conducted between Feb. 14 and Feb. 17, 2020. For this survey, a sample of 1,301 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 ± 3.2 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.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
