Poll Finds Conservatives More Opposed to Govt. Surveillance Than Liberals

Conservative Canadians are more opposed to government surveillance than those on the left, according to a new poll.

The survey, conducted by Modus Research, found those on the political right are more than twice as likely to be highly concerned about government spying than those on the left.

Overall, 47 per cent of poll respondents said they were highly concerned about the government’s surveillance of the Canadian population. Among right-leaning Canadians, 76 per cent said they were highly concerned by it, compared to 48 per cent of those in the centre and 35 among the left.

“With Trudeau in power, people on the centre and the left are more at ease with these types of government surveillance, whereas if Harper was in power, they would probably be more opposed to it,” he noted.

The poll surveyed more than 1,200 Canadians between March 1 and 18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 per cent. The respondents were weighted according to age, gender, region and education data from Statistics Canada.

Men were a little more concerned than women about government surveillance and those with a university education were slightly more supportive of it, but political affiliation played the biggest role in people’s response.

Opposition to forms of government surveillance (definitely and probably should not have the right), all Canadians:

— Monitoring all emails and any other information exchanged on the internet: 83% — Collecting information about anyone living in this country without their knowledge: 75% — Demanding information about peoples’ finances from banks: 70% — Keeping people under video surveillance in public areas: 45%

However, the right was much more strongly opposed to government surveillance than the left, and in some cases the difference approached a two to one margin:

— Monitoring all emails and any other information exchanged on the internet: 72% vs. 56% — Demand information about peoples’ finances from banks: 59% vs. 24% — Collecting information about anyone living in this country without their knowledge: 53% vs. 40% — Keeping people under video surveillance in public areas: 39% vs. 18%