Shachi Kurl on Trump, Trade, and Canadian Politics
On November 5th, Donald Trump was elected as the 47th President of the United States. The Republicans gained a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. There were also recent provincial elections in Canada, including British Columbia, where the incumbent NDP party nearly lost power to the Conservatives. Federally, in Canada, there is potential for a spring election.
This week, Shachi Kurl, President of the Angus Reid Institute, joins the podcast to talk about the recent elections and polling.
Here are some of the questions that Jackie and Peter asked Shachi: What does the election of Donald Trump tell you about the state of democracies? How important of an issue is immigration? To what extent do Canadians support Trump’s policies and approach? What is the likelihood of US import tariffs of 10-20% being applied to Canada? What are the likely energy policies from the Trump administration? What are the priorities in British Columbia post-election, and do you expect any change with respect to natural resource development and LNG? How could the election of President Trump impact the next Canadian election? Do you expect any leadership changes for the Liberals? How does climate change rate as a priority for Canadian voters?
Content referenced in this podcast:
- Angus Reid Institute
- Shachi Kurl, Ottawa Citizen Article, “Don’t expect a unified ‘Team Canada’ approach to Donald Trump this time” (Nov 8, 2024)
- Awaiting the next President: Canadians prefer Trudeau to deal with Harris, Poilievre to work with Trump (Nov 4, 2024)
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Episode 260 transcript
Disclosure:
The information and opinions presented in this ARC Energy Ideas podcast are provided for informational purposes only and are subject to the disclaimer link in the show notes.
Announcer:
This is the ARC Energy Ideas podcast, with Peter Tertzakian and Jackie Forrest, exploring trends that influence the energy business.
Jackie Forrest:
Welcome to the Arc Energy Ideas podcast. I’m Jackie Forrest.
Peter Tertzakian:
And I’m Peter Tertzakian. Welcome back. So Jackie, you know what they say about real estate, location, location, location. So I’m going to extend that to energy. It’s all politics and policy, politics and policy, politics and policy. And so how can we avoid any of that with the election of Donald Trump, the BC election.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, it’s making everyone question-
Peter Tertzakian:
I know.
Jackie Forrest:
… what’s going on with the future of clean energy? For sure.
Peter Tertzakian:
What’s going on with future of any energy? We’ve got the BC election, we’ve got, who knows, a looming federal election, probably not this year, but maybe early next year. So we can’t get away from talking about it. And what better person to talk about what’s going on than one of the most eminent pollsters and sage people about the subject and Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute. So I think we’ll just go straight into it because there’s so much to talk about. Welcome, Shachi.
Shachi Kurl:
Hey, thank you, and thanks for the intro and the kind words. Nice to see you both again.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, great to see you too. So first of all, tell our audience a bit about yourself and a bit about Angus Reid Institute for those that aren’t familiar with it.
Shachi Kurl:
Okay, happy to do that. Well, not much to say about me. I like to call myself the accidental pollster. So it’s nice to hear words like knowledgeable or preeminent, but look, I started my career as a political journalist and what I like to say about polling is that it’s the closest thing in many ways to journalism outside of journalism because as a political journalist, I used to tell stories using quotes and clips and interviews, but it was all about what are Canadians thinking? What’s the narrative of the country or a particular policy or issue in this moment? We do the same thing with polling, only instead of individual interviews, you’re telling those stories in the aggregate, right? You’re telling those stories based on how lots and lots of people are responding to what you have to ask them as opposed to what one or two people are saying. So I love it. I enjoy it. It’s never boring. And today you get to be an expert on whatever you’re throwing a dart at on the wall.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah, well, there’s many darts being thrown and not necessarily at the wall. It’s a solid Trump win down south, indeed, a solid Republican win clean sweep. I think it took some by surprise though, we’re going to talk about that. We’ve had this despite Democrats and a lot of people saying if he wins, it’s an assault on democracy or even the end of democracy. Maybe just tell us what you think about the state of Western democracies as a consequence of what just happened in the United States.
Shachi Kurl:
I think my observation has more to do with where electorates are at in those Western democracies in terms of being in a moment where they want to reject incumbency. And I feel like we’ve seen that across the board. So look at what we saw over the summer in the United Kingdom where a decade plus of conservative rule was replaced by a sweeping victory for labor, the left of center government. You saw what happened in France where Macron’s government basically was initially threatened by a neo-Nazi party, and then in the end, I mean he’s a lame duck as president, but saw a pushback in France against that movement. We are into elections in Germany. Closer to home in British Columbia. We saw a repudiation of an incumbent left of center government, but not so far as to see the right of center form government. So against that backdrop, and then I think also against the backdrop of what we saw with Biden’s candidacy, how badly that went, how we did not see a new candidate until July, really.
And then there was no opportunity to sort of road test a lot of the messaging. I do feel as though the Democrats in the United States ultimately looking back, and of course hindsight is 2020. Yes, there was a moment of energy around Kamala Harris, but I think a lot of presumptions too around what voters wanted. People are at around the world in Western democracies has a lot to do with the fact that the macroeconomic indicators say, hey, the economy’s picking up. Interest rates are falling, things are objectively better, inflation is falling, but people are not, it hasn’t reached their end of the funnel yet. They have not felt it yet. And this was an election where people voted with their pocketbooks.
Jackie Forrest:
And voted for change. Now one issue is immigration. Immigration and the perceived negative impacts of immigrants, legal or otherwise on the Western standard of living, especially in the US. Is that a very big issue, not only in the US but in other western democracies now, including ours?
Shachi Kurl:
Well, and we can talk about what’s happening in Canada. I mean, it’s been a huge issue in Europe for years and years. It’s an issue that feels like it bubbles up and has been very much top of mind for Americans in the United States on and off over the last 10 to 15 years going back to even the Obama administration. In Canada, it’s fascinating, because two things can be true at the same time and it kind of blows people’s minds. The first thing is the immigration experiment in Canada, going back to the 1970s has actually been an incredibly successful one. That is a true thing. The other thing is that Canada is also facing headwinds around immigration and migration, and bringing people into the country that has created both politically and economically some challenges. And we have not quite figured out as a country how to have those conversations without detangling it or disentangling it from issues around multiculturalism or issues around racism.
And I say that as the daughter of immigrants. My parents came, they emigrated from India and we’re in the United Kingdom, we’re in the States and basically got to Canada and went, yeah, this is home, this is it. But Canada is a very unique country when it comes to immigration because we are protected and buffeted by two giant oceans by the Arctic Circle and by depending on who’s in power, the Safe Third Country Act. And so we saw how that was very much tested under the first Trump administration with people literally walking across an undefended border from the United States into Canada because they were worried about being deported by Trump. Trump is now promising mass deportations, and I would expect that we will also see those types of irregular crossings. Again, we have a tendency in Canada, the broad we, and I’m speaking obviously in generalities, not everybody, but to have kind of this idea of smugness around, well, we’re just better at it, or we are less racist or we’re less hard line about immigration. We’re also far less tested in terms of what I would call irregular immigration.
Jackie Forrest:
So President Trump won very soundly and I think a lot of people thought it would be more close, but as the time of recording, he obviously is the president. Starting next year has the control of the Senate with the Republican Party, and it looks like a very good chance that they’re going to get the house as well. So they will be able to get a lot of policy change through if that’s the case. So let’s talk a little bit about what to expect and what the impacts may be on Canada. Of course, one of the big policies that President Trump talked about during the campaign was 10 to 20% tariffs on all imports into the United States. Of course this would be very difficult for the Canadian economy, not only for our oil and gas, they are basically our only customer. We do have now with the Trans Mountain, some flows going to other markets, but very little. What do you think the likelihood is? It obviously would hurt them as well. We’re a big trading partner for them.
Shachi Kurl:
Yeah, I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think what I can tell you is that quite aside from the rhetoric of the President, there is less of an appetite among the American people for high tariffs or major tariffs on Canada. It’s more China that’s in the crosshairs of Americans in terms of policy. And we know that this is a president who likes to think that he’s got the ear of the people or his people, so to speak. So look, there’s reason to have tariff terror in this country, given that we are net exporters, and particularly as you’ve laid out with our dependence on the US market, there’s also concerns around the impact of a Trump victory and a Trump White House on another review and renegotiation of NAFTA or [inaudible 00:09:33] or whatever we’re going to call it, third time around.
So look, lots of reasons to feel jittery, and I think it also comes at a tender time and a challenging time for Canada because we’re also trying to figure out who our economic partners are in the world. So the last time this happened, cast your mind back to 2016, 2017. Okay, well we need to reengage with China. We need to look at those Asian markets. And because of geopolitics, we know how that has gone. Then it was like, okay, well let’s leave China aside. Let’s now look at India and we know how that’s gone. And there are those who would point out to you very quickly that actually in terms of both bilateral relationships with India and China, the trade relationship has actually, it’s not been as catastrophic for the trade relationship or the economic relationship, but it’s also handicapped or hampered the ability to grow those relationships.
So Canada is now in a place where it’s like, okay, well I guess we go back to doubling down on the states and now we’re into the challenges of trying to navigate that all over again. So where do we turn next? And I think it is going to be a bit of a time of challenge and reckoning around what is our place in the world economically and from a trade perspective, what is our place in the world diplomatically, and who are we in the world now as the world changes and as different countries now sort of form different alliances and blocks?
Peter Tertzakian:
I agree with you the identity of who are our trading partners and friends? I mean, there’s only so much Belgian chocolate and French cheese we can trade back and forth, but the Trump win was somewhat surprising to some people. Here in Canada, what do you think the support for Canadians… Have you done any polling on how many Canadians support Trump and his policies? I mean, my sense is that it’s more than we think, especially when you think about rural Canadians. Of course in the United States, there’s a big rural urban divide as well with all this stuff. But I sense that the notion that Canadians views are drastically different from the United States are a bit misplaced. What do you see with your polling?
Shachi Kurl:
I wouldn’t say that our views are as similar to what’s going to be the 50 or 51% of US eligible US voters who cast a ballot at the top of the ticket for Trump. If Trump was running in this country, he would’ve suffered a resounding loss. But to your point, there is a support base for Donald Trump in Canada, and there is a not insignificant base of Canadians. And we saw that through, I believe it was about 6% that voted in the 2021 election for the People’s party of Canada. And you look at the tent of conservative voters in this country, both federally and at various provincial levels. Conservative voters, right-of-center voters in this country sort of fall into two categories. People who are right-of-center, but absolutely cannot stand Trump, reject Trump, reject his rhetoric, reject his policy, because a lot of that policy from an economic standpoint, as you’ve just pointed out, is protectionist rather than trade-forward or globalist.
So there’s the economic issue there, and then there’s just the rhetorical issues around immigration, et cetera. But there is a strong base of Canadian, conservative right-of-center voter that is supportive of sympathetic to aligned with the policies and statements that Trump espouses and that a modern-day MAGA Republican Party espouses. So you asked the question, you think it’s more than is measured? I would say it’s there. And what’s happened over the last eight years is people are not so shy about expressing their views and saying, “Yeah, I agree with that,” or, “Yeah, I like Trump.” But it’s not the majority and it’s certainly not even the majority of conservative voters in this country.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay, well, we’ll get to the potential for a Canadian election here and the strategy of the conservatives, but that’s interesting background that that may be a bit too far for a lot of voters. I want to come back to energy policy. That’s what a lot of our listeners are thinking a lot about. You used the word feeling jittery. I think there’s a lot of jittery feelings in the energy sector right now. Based on the campaign, there’s the potential for repealing some of these clean energy subsidies, increasing more oil and gas production, which would be more competition for us into our biggest market.
And then relaxing rules around climate through the Environmental Protection Agency. So not requiring carbon capture on power plants, relaxing vehicle efficiency standards and methane leaking, which would put our economy at a disadvantage because we’ve put in all these climate policies and their cost structure is going to be different. So all of these don’t look great for Canada. Just any thoughts on what’s going to be high on the agenda and is energy actually going to be, he talks about things he’s going to get done on day one, is energy far down the list here?
Shachi Kurl:
I mean, who knows what resides in the head of Donald Trump? I have no idea except for the fact that he has said drill, baby drill. And we did see last time around in 2016, the speed at which a lot of Obama era policies were basically dismantled and undone. And I have no reason to think that we won’t necessarily see those things and those actions, again, particularly as it stands relative to things like the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, which was of course a huge bet on green energy by the Biden administration. So this is a president who once called climate change a hoax. It’s going to take a while for a lot of these things to shake out, and I don’t see any good in terms of the impact on climate change.
But in terms of our ability to pivot in Canada, where I think it’s important to point out quite concerningly in some ways that climate change and policies that are aimed at mitigating climate change. As a political issue in Canada, it’s gone from the number one issue in 2018, 2019 to an issue that’s tied for immigration with about 20% of Canadians saying, yeah, this is the most important issue for me. Five years ago it was about 40% of Canadians who said it was the most important issue to them. So we’ve seen that slide. Will that cause it to spike? I mean, there’s just a lot of permutations at the moment.
Peter Tertzakian:
But we sort of have a manifestation of that. And when you talk about shaking out, reaching to the BC election, where we saw John Rustad and the conservatives almost defeat the incumbent NDP really on a platform almost dismissing climate as any sort of issue. So talk about that result in BC, and in particular what Premier EB. Is thinking now and how he’s going to have to conduct political business given that he almost lost the election.
Shachi Kurl:
Sure. The arc of new Democratic government since 2017 has been a really interesting one because in British Columbia, the first NDP premier that we’d had in about 16, 17 years was John Horgan, who many people said could have been a conservative or a small C conservative in his deepest pit of his stomach in that he supported things such as the Site C Dam and was fine with LNG development and the pipeline construction, all the rest of it. So somebody who supported the carbon tax believed in the carbon tax, espoused the carbon tax, but at the same time said, “Look, we are not going to transition to a green economy or a completely hydro economy or electric economy overnight.” The NDP under David EB definitely took a harder turn to the left, and we also saw a realignment of priorities. So through that period of time, we’re not hearing as much about the resource economy or the green economy and basically how money is made in the province.
We did hear quite a bit about addiction policy, legalization in the name of harm, reduction of possessing small amounts of hard drugs, issues around gender policy, et cetera. And the culture wars really were very much part of what along, I should just add very quickly, again, it was a pocketbook election. British Columbians were feeling crippled under the cost of living and also very unhappy with healthcare delivery. So through that lens, economic issues and particularly does climate change exist? What should we do about pipelines? Where do we go with the green economy? And even issues around the carbon tax, we’re all viewed through the lens of, my groceries cost a lot of money, my rent costs a lot of money, gas costs a lot of money, and I’m looking for something else. And again, I spoke to you earlier about sort of that anti-incumbency movement. I believe it had as much to do with saying kick the bums out as it did with BC conservative voters somehow full on rejecting climate change, even though a lot of Rustad’s Yahoo candidates espouse that.
Jackie Forrest:
Well, let’s talk about LNG. A lot of our listeners are interested in that. I mean, one of the theories, and maybe we’re wrong based on what you just said, is that one of the reasons the conservatives had a near win was the feeling of the economy not growing and not offering enough opportunity, and that if there was more resource development and there’d be more economic growth, and there may be a pivot here to supporting more LNG projects. Do you think that, do you sort of foresee that as a result of this election?
Shachi Kurl:
I definitely know that that was something felt particularly outside of Metro Vancouver and in Northern communities. And of course we say anything sort of beyond Hope, BC is northern or the interior in hopes for your audience like a 90-minute drive from Vancouver. So maybe it’s a little longer with traffic, but all of which to say for half the electorate in this province that’s concentrated around the urban core, that is Metro Vancouver, yes, economic growth. But that to me felt like something espoused more in the south or in the city by the business community rather than what we were hearing from people in their households and in their apartments and in their townhouses talking about what was important for them. Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t an issue, but to talk to people in those northern communities and resource dependent communities, it was absolutely the number one issue for them. It’s just one of those things, where does the balance of population lie? So it wasn’t not an issue, but it also perhaps was not the most driving issue vis-a-vis energy policy that you might’ve heard about through the grapevine into Alberta or other places.
Peter Tertzakian:
It’s more an industrial policy of which energy is a part in this instance. Right. Let’s move federally, and I think that just woke up our audience. So your website recently published an article and Jackie will put a post to the article, awaiting the next president, Canadians prefer Trudeau to deal with Harris. Poilievre to work with Trump. Now that we know it’s Trump, tell us a little bit more about this article and what we can expect in terms of Canadians thinking about our own election that will be within the next 12 months.
Shachi Kurl:
So this was a survey that we put to Canadians, who do you think is best to manage the relationship? And you’ve given us the headline there, and if you dig a little bit deeper on the question of either, who would’ve been best on either. Poilievre, even inched it a little bit on that, about 26% of Canadians said, Poilievre would be better regardless of whoever won. And about 20% said Trudeau would be better regardless of whoever wins. I look at this now through the lens, and I wrote a piece on this for the Ottawa citizen a few days ago that said, given what we know about that it will have an impact on the way we see the domestic approach to managing Washington and the White House. So the context is this, in 2016, 20 17, particularly after Trump was sworn in, Ottawa really put together that Team Canada approach.
They pulled in former Harper era cabinet ministers such as James Moore, they had Rona Ambrose there and others to advise Ottawa. And it’s like, okay, here’s what to do and here’s how we’re going to take a very balanced approach in talking to governors and talking to senators and talking to big city mayors, and we’re going to do a pan political Team Canada approach. It doesn’t matter if your stripe is conservative or liberal in this country, we’re going to work together on this. And they did, particularly through that negotiation, that renegotiation of NAFTA. Now, why would the conservatives in those days had agreed to do that? Why would’ve they agreed to do it? Well, number one, they had experienced to give, there was a higher mission or calling, and also politically what was there to lose. This was a party in the middle of a rebuild. It’s easier to do the right thing when there is less to lose politically.
You’ve already heard Pierre Poilievre, leader of the conservatives in the house sort of mocking Trudeau for saying, “Well, you’re going to be Secretary of State for job growth in the US, because basically your premiership or leadership is going to be a net drain on Canadian jobs as a result of what’s happening with the President elect and the things he’s saying.” There’s no political advantage or upside for Pierre Poilievre to work with this government or take a united approach. And so I would not expect to see a Team Canada approach in this interregnum between now and the next federal election.
If we are to believe that the next federal election is going to come sometime in the spring of next year, we’ll see. I mean, constitutionally, they don’t actually have to call one until I think 2026. But to that point, if you’re Pierre Poilievre, instead of saying, “I’m going to do everything I can to work collaboratively with the government of the day,” you’re going to say, “Look, let’s just get this election over with, because it’s very obvious that I’ve got the advantage on dealing with Trump.” That is an untested hypothesis, but it is what Canadians believe at this point. We have no idea if Trump will take someone like Pierre Poilievre seriously or just treat him the way he’s treated Justin Trudeau over the years.
Jackie Forrest:
Now, could Trump actually be helpful to the liberals? Let’s say over the next three or four months? He has some policies. You already said that Canadians are necessarily all liking Trump policy, and that makes them worried that Pierre Poilievre may be more like that and actually see more favoring for the liberals. Is that a possibility?
Shachi Kurl:
It’s a possibility. Anything is possible, but I mean, definitely. I guess what I would say is it’s predicated on the notion or the hypothesis that Canadians will draw a direct line between Poilievre and Trump and see Poilievre as like a petit Trump or a Trump-lite or a Northern Trump or whatever you want to call it. And I would say that so far, and the liberals have tried this in terms of their advertising, they’ve done some advertising splicing together, clips of things Trump has said and clips of things that Poilievre has said and tried to make that connection for diehard left-of-center voters. And there’s about 40% of them. It’s not nobody, but those could be NDP voters or they could be liberal voters. For those diehard voters that may feel true. But for swing voters, and of course we know it’s the same in the states, it doesn’t matter.
We know how California’s going to vote. We know how So-and-So’s going to vote. It really came down to those swing states. For the six to 10% of swing voters in Canada, they have to feel very strongly that yes, Poilievre is like Trump. That is something that will swing their vote or direct their vote. And whatever grievances or fatigue they have with a nine-year liberal government, it will be enough to swing them back to the liberals. It also is predicated on the NDP vote really collapsing and moving towards the liberals. So that’s a lot of ifs and a lot of things have to happen. But it could happen.
Peter Tertzakian:
It could happen. But don’t you think-
Shachi Kurl:
It could.
Peter Tertzakian:
… I believe what you said earlier, that the force of regime change or the desire to kick out the incumbent is ultimately much stronger than maybe a few points the liberals may get as a consequence of this Trump, Poilievre comparison.
Shachi Kurl:
It should also be pointed out very quickly that Poilievre has been quite unequivocal around things like, right, so abortion, as much as they might try to put it on the table, is not going to be on the table.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. What is the liberal Caucus thinking now? And if you can also relate that to Atlantic-
Shachi Kurl:
Got to get some liberal Caucus members on this podcast.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah, well, we should do that, especially from Atlantic Canada, because that’s where the recent swell of discontent and calls for Trudeau to step aside have come from. So what’s the mindset in that part of the country, which is dominantly liberal, but looks like it could swing the other way?
Shachi Kurl:
It’s been interesting because you also just saw in New Brunswick provincial election that was a very decisive win for the New Brunswick liberals. And so how to layer caucus politics and Parliament Hill politics onto the mood of the nation and then onto the discontent that regional backbenchers are feeling in different parts of the country. It becomes a very complicated math. The fact that these caucus members weren’t even prepared to sort of come out into the light and say, “We want Trudeau gone.” It certainly created a flash fire on Parliament Hill in terms of the center and the chattering class talking about it. But I think we’ve also seen, in terms of Justin Trudeau’s leadership, he’s pretty diffident, he’s pretty stubborn. When he says he is going to do something or not do something, he sticks with that and he will doggedly stick with that. And so when he says, “I’m not going anywhere,” I personally think that one should believe him.
And there is a very compelling narrative from disaffected liberals who are like, “Well, he should go,” or, “It’s time for him to go,” or, “He is going to go at the last minute,” or, “Maybe later.” They’ve been predicting his departure, his exit for years, and it hasn’t happened yet. I’m a big believer in when somebody shows you who they are one way or the other, for good or for bad, and I think in this case it’s neutral. It’s his choice to stay if he wants. If he says, I’m not going anywhere, well, he hasn’t gone anywhere yet.
Jackie Forrest:
Well, but the story in the US as Camilla Harris, part of her problem was that Biden hung on too long and that made the whole party not have the chance of winning. Do you think that creates some reflection there?
Shachi Kurl:
I certainly think it does, and it strengthens the narrative among the Trudeau must go group. The flip side to that is we have seen leaders, whether they’re premiers or prime ministers over time, say, “Look, I’m going to absorb the loss, right? I’m going to take the loss. I’m going to take the punch to the eyeball, and then the party can rebuild.” And we saw that with Harper. He didn’t go. They knew in 2015 that era was coming to an end and he said, “Look, I’m going to wear this.” Kathleen Wynne did that in Ontario. And so this idea that we’re going to have a new candidate and somehow the candidate will turn around, not just the concerns. To use the Harris, Biden example about Biden’s cognition and his ability to lead over the next four years, because it was four years. But in Canada, that somehow a new candidate can also overcome a three term going for fourth term government.
That’s a tall order. I’m not saying it can’t be done. Christy Clark managed to pull one off in 2013. We saw Wynne do it once in Ontario as well. So you can have those come from behinds, but I would say they’re more rare than not. Again, it’s just the world according to me. In this case, if I’m observing this, I see the dynamics of what’s happening in Canada closer to that election in the United Kingdom where the labor was leading the conservatives, the Tories for the better part of two years, and then won, as opposed to what we thought might happen in the United States just a few months ago, or even a few weeks ago, where a new candidate and Kamala Harris was going to flip the script.
Peter Tertzakian:
Can we get back to the subject of climate change as an issue of discussion around Canadian kitchen tables? You said it was ranked number one a couple years ago, and now it’s fallen as it has.
Shachi Kurl:
Pre-pandemic, yeah.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. Pre-pandemic, it’s really fallen off. We’ve got Cop 29 that just started a couple of days ago. As we record this, I’ve heard indirectly from someone who is there who listened in on the federal Canadian delegation that the Canadian government is going to spend a lot more money on climate change advertising in this country. I don’t know if you’ve heard the same. If they do, will it make any difference?
Shachi Kurl:
There are so many challenges right now. So first of all, the reality of climate change and the reality of what’s happening in terms of climate action or the attempts to, as I say, mitigate climate change. Canadians, or it’s just human nature. People are at a place now where a couple of things are happening. You’re seeing quite a bit more skepticism around things like carbon pricing. It’s like, well, we don’t want to pay the carbon tax. Again, it’s that cost of living issue and people not necessarily drawing the line between carbon taxation and then how that has an impact on climate change mitigation.
People in this country, you’ve got some who aren’t really sure that climate change mitigation actions are even working. So does the carbon tax work, is it working? Has it worked? What about other actions and other policies? So there is level, I think, of skepticism among people. It’s like, “Hey, I believe in climate change, but I don’t think the things that we are trying to do have worked.” So that’s one area of narrative that we’re starting to see emerge. The other is a sense of hopelessness. Again, these are not majorities, but 10% here, 20% there who say it is kind of too late. We can’t turn it around. We just feel very hopeless now. So what’s the point?
Peter Tertzakian:
So getting back to the question, would an advertising campaign change that if you were to do a poll?
Shachi Kurl:
It might. It doesn’t hurt. I will just say this very quickly on carbon pricing. We saw how the Trudeau government, this time a year ago had been caught very flat-footed on being able to articulate the importance of it, and they did quite a bit of messaging and communication and advertising on that. And then we did see people a little bit more amenable to carbon pricing as a result of it in terms of our poll.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, they are, but I mean, if I wind back to, I think it was pre-pandemic, there was a survey done that asked people, are you concerned about climate change? And yes, overwhelmingly, as you said, there was lots of people said, “This is the number one issue,” but the follow on question was, “Well, what are you willing to pay for it?” And I think the answer was not much more than a Netflix subscription, which at that time when people had money or inflation wasn’t an issue. That time it was like eight or 10 bucks a month is nothing. And so today we have strained pocketbooks among the population. The issue has fallen down. So I suspect that the advertising campaign would make people answer positively to the question, “Yes, I’m concerned about climate change,” but the answer, “Are you willing to pay for it?” I’m not convinced in this environment people would answer, yes. Is that also consistent with what you’re saying, that it’s a sense of not only hopelessness, but why would I pay for something that’s not going to work in terms of taxes and things? Is that where we’re at?
Shachi Kurl:
I can’t comment on the poll that you looked at because I have no idea which one it is. There is a lot of polling out there. I don’t think it’s one of ours. But certainly when we ask the questions around, what’s the top issue for you? Yes. To your point, the number of people saying that climate change is the top issue for me has waned since pre-pandemic times, the hopelessness certainly fuels specifically concern about or willingness to pay for things like carbon pricing or additional carbon pricing, or other forms of pricing aimed at mitigating climate change. So yeah, I mean, you’re asking me to answer a hypothetical, Peter. I don’t know. But yeah, I mean it’s what else can government do at this point if they’ve got folks on the side of an issue that they need them to be on another side in order to come along, so to speak?
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, it’s a huge topic for we need to have you back to talk about these sorts of things and many others. It’s been really wonderful having you. I mean, politics and policy is the number one driver of energy related issues. We didn’t really touch on deep on energy related issues, but you’ve given us a lot of thought and context about where the heads of people are at in Western democracies, and we’ll see how that manifests itself over the course of the next year as we head into our own federal election. Thank you, Shachi Kurl, president of Angus Reid Institute for joining us.
Shachi Kurl:
Peter, Jackie, thank you so much for having me. Always a pleasure to chat with you.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, thanks, Shachi. I learned a lot from the conversation. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on the app that you listen to and tell someone else about us.
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