In a time of widespread disagreement and ever-increasing polarization, there remains a bitter solidarity among Canadians in the belief that the government doesn’t know what it’s doing.
In the wake of regional discontent from the western provinces and blockades jamming up the country’s rail network, a towering majority of Canadians agree with the statement, “Right now, Canada is broken.”
Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians agree with the statement, rising to 83% in Alberta, found a DART & Maru/Blue poll conducted for the National Post.
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“This is one of the few polls that I just looked at — and I’ve been doing this for 30 years, so I did polling around the Oka Crisis — I was astonished when I saw some of these numbers, but I’m not surprised,” said long-time pollster John Wright, a partner with DART.
The poll spells bad news for Justin Trudeau with a majority of people believing that the country is not headed in the right direction and that the prime minister is not governing well. The Liberals also get most of the blame for the rail blockades.
And on Trudeau’s signature promise to help Indigenous people, two-thirds of Canadians don’t believe he has delivered on that pledge.
“A lot of the blame has been centred on the prime minister and the Liberal government,” said Daniel Béland, the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.
Béland said the trouble started for Trudeau early on, because the blockades began while he was out of the country, campaigning for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.
“There was some form of void. The government left the impression — at least many people came to the conclusion — that there was no one really in charge of the situation,” said Béland.
On the topic of the rail blockades, only 27 per cent of Canadians think Trudeau has handled the situation well, while the premiers get a 45 per cent approval rating on the issue.
And while Canadians are comprehensively scathing about Trudeau’s government they are conflicted about the demonstrators and the concerns of Indigenous people in Canada.
The poll suggests this may be partly because Canadians think governments constantly lie to Indigenous people. Fifty-seven per cent of Canadians agree that “governments lie to Indigenous people about making things better for them.”
A majority of Canadians, 62%, also believe Trudeau has not delivered on his promises to Indigenous people.
Roughly half the country disagree with the methods used to protest, but they would “stand with Indigenous people in solidarity” to help solve these issues. Half of Canadians also think “we’ve done enough for Indigenous people in Canada.”
Still, two-thirds of Canadians say they would support a one-time payment issued immediately to Indigenous people for things like “food, clean water and housing,” to cover the “necessities of life,” even if it cost $1 billion.
With the blockades coinciding with economic unrest and alienation in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the poll respondents and people interviewed by the Post worry that the bleak mood in the country isn’t just a temporary problem.
“Canada is not broken. Canada’s institutions are broken,” said Donald Savoie, the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at the University of Moncton, who has written extensively about democracy in Canada.
Savoie said from the beginning of confederation, the governance structures were designed to balance Quebec and Ontario, without much regard for western Canada.
“In 1867, the concern was to protect Canada against democracy, not to protect regional interests,” said Savoie. “Until we have an institution that can speak on behalf of the regions, we are going to have a problem.”
That worry was recently echoed in a manifesto released by a handful of Alberta MPs last week. Among other concerns, the “Buffalo Declaration” noted that Alberta has a little more than half the senators of either New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, despite a much larger population.
Savoie said that most countries have some kind of regional counterweight, like the United States Senate which allocates two Senators for every state, but Canada has never had any institution that effectively performs that role.
Asked to rank how various people have handled the Wet’suwet’en protests, 67 per cent of people think the rail companies have handled it well. The provincial police get a 57 per cent approval rating and the RCMP get 55 per cent approval.
Politicians, though, get much worse reviews. Provincial premiers get a 45 per cent approval rating, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer gets 36 per cent approval, and only 27 per cent of Canadians think Trudeau has handled the situation well.
More than 80 per cent of Canadians believe their politicians care more about their own partisan interests than working on behalf of all Canadians. The highest level of agreement on this came from Alberta, at 90 per cent, and Atlantic Canada, at 86 per cent.
Wright said the issue of increasing partisanship and polarization is one that worries him.
“People are truly frustrated with the inability of their leadership to come together and recognize that human beings are being affected by their decisions and that they’re not simply voters,” said Wright.
The DART & Maru/Blue poll was conducted among 1,511 randomly selected Canadian adult members of Maru/Blue’s online panel on Feb. 24 and is considered accurate within plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
EDMONTON – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
