Nearly one in two Canadians want to see more refugees resettled in Canada and the same number believe the current federal government isn’t doing enough to help those affected by the crisis in Syria, according to a poll.
The Mainstreet/Postmedia survey found that 48 per cent of Canadians support a “dramatic” increase in refugee resettlement, the same percentage that disapprove of the government’s response.
“Canadians clearly want to see more action taken on refugee resettlement,” Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet, said in a release. “They believe it is the best way Canada can help and almost half of Canadians support resettling over 30,000 refugees. These are significant numbers.”
Another 13 per cent indicate Canada should accept between 20,000 and 30,000 and 11 per cent between 10,000 and 20,000, while just 13 per cent indicated less than 10,000 Syrian refugees should be taken in.
Support for the government is highest in Alberta (48 per cent) followed by the Prairies with 42 per cent. Disapproval is highest in Quebec (53 per cent) followed by Atlantic Canada and Ontario (49 per cent). Mainstreet suggested this approval is correlated with federal voting intention.
More Canadians – 26 per cent – believe that NDP Leader Tom Mulcair would be most effective in addressing the refugee crisis, followed closely by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau (24 per cent) and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper (21 per cent).
On Saturday, the New Democrats and Liberals both said Canada needs to do more to help alleviate the Syrian refugee crisis.
NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar said the NDP will reach out to the Conservative government to ask it to adopt an “accelerated plan” to bring more than 46,000 government-sponsored refugees to Canada by 2019, including 10,000 by the end of 2015.
The Liberals, meanwhile, said a Liberal government would expand Canada’s intake to 25,000 refugees from Syria through immediate, direct sponsorship by the federal government.
Immigration Minister Chris Alexander has said Canada will accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next three years in response to the UN refugee agency’s global appeal to resettle 100,000 refugees worldwide.
The Mainstreet Research poll was conducted for Postmedia surveying 2,506 respondents. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.96 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
With files from The Canadian Press
Mainstreet also released interactive graphs. Click on the images below to see how Canadians responded to different questions.
