Front Burner - Taking the public temperature on COVID-19

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Nearly two full years have passed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Now, from the Coutts border-crossing blockade in Alberta, to the streets around Parliament Hill, it’s obvious that there are some people with very strong opinions out there about how the disease is being handled. But beyond the noise of these chaotic protests, how exactly do Canadians feel about how we’ve weathered COVID-19? And how do they feel about the protests? David Coletto is the CEO of the polling firm Abacus Data, which has been asking people across the country for their thoughts. He breaks down what the numbers tell us so far. The margin of error for the data discussed in today’s episode is about 2.5 to 2.6 per cent.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. After discussing with Cabinet and caucus, after consultation with premiers from all provinces and territories, after speaking with opposition leaders, the federal government has invoked the Emergencies Act to supplement provincial and territorial capacity to address the blockades and occupations.

That is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday, with a measure to stop the protests that have choked downtown Ottawa and critical border crossings for weeks. It's not something that's been used ever, but it exists for a reason. The Prime Minister said this measure would be proportional and targeted. The Emergencies Act will also allow the government to make sure essential services are rendered, for example, in order to tow vehicles blocking roads. In addition, financial institutions will be authorized or directed to render essential services to help address the situation,

including by regulating and prohibiting the use of property to fund or support illegal blockades. And finally, will enable the RCMP to enforce municipal bylaws and provincial defenses where required. He also said separate from the act, the government has been stopping people from crossing the border to join the protest. And Trudeau said what his government will not do. We're not using the Emergencies Act to call in the military. We're not suspending fundamental rights or overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are not limiting people's freedom of speech. We are not limiting freedom of peaceful assembly. We are not preventing people from exercising their right to protest legally. We're going to be heading to Ottawa to see what the impact of this will be on the ground.

And we hope to bring you that episode a bit later in the week. But today, I wanted to step back and ask how Canadians are feeling. Not just about this pandemic, but also the restrictions and the backlash. Pollster David Coletto of Abacus Data has been watching public opinion very closely on this, and he's here today to break it down. Hi, David. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

We're nearly two years into this pandemic. And at this point, how are Canadians in general feeling about the COVID-19 pandemic? Well, I think everyone agrees that we wish it wasn't still on and are tired and fed up with how it's affected our lives. That being said, I think we are moving towards a real shift in how people are perceiving the pandemic. Most still believe, 60% believe that COVID-19 is still more dangerous than a typical annual flu. Most still believe there is some risk and they're worried about contracting the virus. But I also think there is a growing number of people who think it's going to be with us and we just need to figure out how to live with

it. But, you know, despite what we're seeing with the convoy and some of the protests, the vast majority of the country remain aware that there is a virus still out there. And that means we have to be thoughtful about both individual decision making, but also the public policy response to that risk that the majority of the country still believes exists. Can you give me some numbers how that breaks down? When you say most, what do you mean? Yeah. So, for example, when we ask people which of the following best describes how you feel about COVID and the risks to your health, 69% say higher risk perception about the pandemic than those who are younger. And so that's that's that's one point about it. Similarly, when we ask people, you know, when you think about the restrictions today, how do you feel? Just about half, 49 percent say they describe the restrictions or the protections in place as about right.

Another 37% say it's time to loosen them up, and 14% actually believe it's time to tighten them up, particularly those in parts of the country that have seen some of these restrictions already lifted, like, say, Alberta or Saskatchewan. It is time to remove these restrictive and damaging health measures. It's time for us to learn to live with COVID. It's time for each of us as individuals now to make a conscious effort to treat everyone in our daily lives that we encounter equally.

It's also time for the proof of vaccination mandate to end. So effective at midnight this Sunday, February the 13th, all provincial proof of vaccination requirements will end. So again, if you combine the about right group with even those who say it should be tightened up, that shows still a clear majority of the country who says, I'm not ready to move to a phase of this pandemic where there are no universal restrictions or protections on what people can and shouldn't do to, you know, go to a restaurant or fly on a plane or whether or not there should be vaccine mandates for some of those

things. Yeah, that's interesting to hear. You're saying Alberta wants measures tightened up. And do you have any thoughts on why you're seeing higher numbers in Alberta than in other provinces? Well, I think, you know, Alberta and Saskatchewan provide like a case study because they have moved quicker than other jurisdictions to loosen some of the rules, right? I think today is the first day that kids don't have to wear masks in schools in Alberta. So, you know, Albertans are still as likely as Ontarians or Quebecers to say, loosen them up. But there's more of them who are saying, actually, I want these rules tightened back up.

And so that signals to me not everybody in Alberta is thrilled with the direction that province is moving when it comes to the provincial protections or rules around the pandemic. I want to spend some more time with you in a moment digging into specific pandemic responses. But first, I wonder if we could just talk a little bit here about methodology. So what's the margin of error on these polls? How big is your sample? What should we keep in mind when you tell us these numbers? Yeah, great question. So this survey was done from February 8th to the 13th. So we finished it on Sunday morning. We interviewed 1,500 Canadian adults, 18 plus. And the sample, it was done online, but the sample was representative of the Canadian population by age, gender, region, official language, and education. And it's the same methodology we would have used during the election, which most pollsters in Canada actually did pretty well at sort of estimating where the vote was.

And it allows for us to, because of the sample size, to look at some of those regional or demographic or political differences that might be dividing the country on some of these issues. Okay. And so now let's look at the specific pandemic responses. So what are you hearing from people about vaccine mandates specifically? How do they feel about the mandate? How do they feel about the mandate? Yeah, we find, again, there's going to be a common thread in our conversation. About two-thirds of the country want to continue to see a mandate or restrictions or protections, and about a third are open to seeing them lifted. And that's true of vaccine mandates as well. Specifically, when we ask people, you know, which of the following comes closest to your view,

63% say for at least the next year or two, it's a good idea to require people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they have a valid medical exemption to avoid another major outbreak. On the other hand, 37% say it's too big an infringement on individual choice and vaccination should be encouraged but not required. As you might expect, those fully vaxxed are on one side more or less, and those who are not vaccinated almost universally think it's a right that should not be infringed upon. But that view that vaccine mandates are something that's not just about today, but also about the future is really important because in our survey, 70% of Canadians believe that it is either certain or likely that a new variant will emerge that will be actually more

dangerous than Omicron. And so that's the public psyche right now is this like deep defensiveness about, I just don't know what's next. It's interesting though, like the people who think that vaccine mandates are an overreach. There's certainly some overlap there between people who are vaccinated. It's like there's definitely then a good segment of vaccinated people who don't believe in mandates. Absolutely. About a third, actually, of those who are fully vaxxed say we shouldn't require this going forward. And I think, you know, I would I would refer to them as like the reluctant vaccinated. Right. They did it because they had to, but they weren't thrilled that they were forced to.

Right. Does your political affiliation influence how you think about about vaccine mandates? To some extent, it does. So, you know, if you voted for the liberals or the New Democrats in the last federal election. Two-thirds of them support continuing to have a vaccine mandate in place. A quarter don't. You know, not surprising, those who voted for the People's Party in our survey, 82% think that vaccination shouldn't be required. So they're opposed to mandates. And then you get the Conservatives, the Greens and the Bloc, which is more nuanced. You still have a majority in all three of those parties who support a mandate, but you get more sizable minorities within those party bases that says they shouldn't be. And so partisanship has something to do with it, but it's not the only thing. And one of the reasons why is what's been fascinating to me as a social researcher,

especially in the last few weeks, is to see the age divide on some of these questions. tourists, especially in the last few weeks, is to see the age divide on some of these questions. The younger Canadians, if you're under the age of 45, you're far more likely to want the vaccine mandates lifted than if you're older, particularly if you're over 60. And that's a reverse from how people often vote. So we know younger Canadians typically are less likely to vote conservative. But on this case, they're actually more aligned to more conservative politicians in the country than those who are older, who we also know are more likely to vote conservative, typically. So it's what the pandemic in the last few weeks has done is kind of reshuffled where we often agree politically with folks in the country and age

seems to be the biggest driver of that. I don't want this to sound like too obvious a question, but why are younger people more inclined to want these mandates lifted, vaccine mandates lifted? Yeah, I think there's two reasons. One is we know from other data that young people have been most affected from an economic perspective, right? They're working in jobs that have been most disrupted. You know, I teach at Carleton University. I talk to the students there. They say, look, my life's been on hold for two years. I've had to interact with colleagues virtually in class. And, you know, I haven't been able to travel and do all the things you kind of want to do when you're in your 20s and 30s. And then for parents, if you have young kids, well, certainly the pandemic in most parts of this country has been deeply disruptive. And so

I think that plus the desire to see a more social life again means that young people are just far more impatient, want to get on with it. And also keep in mind, they're less likely to think this virus is a risk to them. And so you mix all that together. And I think that helps explain why younger people are more supportive of lifting these vaccinations and also interestingly supportive of the Freedom Convoy, which I know we'll talk about in a moment. Yeah, I am very interested to hear that. But before we do, I just want to talk about mask mandates specifically. What you're seeing, is it similar to vaccine mandates? Did anything different stand out to you when we're talking

about masks, actual mask mandate? Well, in this survey, we asked an interesting question that I think is so insightful to where people's heads are at. It asked people, if the restrictions were lifted by health authorities and governments, would you be comfortable doing each of the following without a mask? Comfortable only if you were wearing a mask or not comfortable at all still? Flying on a plane, only 17% say they'd be comfortable flying on a plane right now without a mask. Going on public transit, about same number, 19%. Going grocery shopping, right? Something that most people feel comfortable doing still, but the vast majority say only if I'm wearing a mask. So even if you lift vaccine mandates, and this is the challenge I think policymakers have, is the vast majority of Canadians, particularly older Canadians, are going to continue to

wear a mask in most of the activities that require one today. And so that's a signal that even if public policy moves in a direction, it may not actually change people's behavior all that much. So is it fair for me to say that we are not exactly seeing some mass Canadian movement calling for all the pandemic restrictions to be lifted here? Yeah, there's no majority support for it. There's sizable minority view, and I think it has shifted in the last few months. But it's still the minority viewpoint.

If public opinion aligned firmly with public policy decisions, in most jurisdictions, in fact, in all jurisdictions, we'd still have most of the restrictions in place that we do today. But I do think people are open to starting to move away from some. For example, I think one that could probably go pretty quickly is the requirement to get tested to come back into Canada because people don't necessarily see that as an effective way of limiting the spread of the virus.

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We've been seeing for weeks now these protests against pandemic restrictions. And one of the refrains that you'll hear from the protesters, along with Freedom and F. Trudeau, is like, we're doing this for our kids, our grandkids. We're doing this for you. We're acting on behalf of Canadians. But what let's let's let's talk about the protests now. What does your research show about how Canadians are feeling about these protests? Well, it again lines up very similar to all the other data we've talked about.

There is support for it, but it's about one out of four Canadians, 28% say they either strongly support or support personally the Freedom Convoy and their demonstrations in Ottawa and across the country. But the key point is that almost half of Canadians continue to say they're strongly opposed to this convoy and to the protest. And another 13% said they oppose. You put those together and you're almost at 60% who oppose it, only at 28% who support it. And then you have 13% who say, I don't have any clear views on this, who say, I don't want to take a side.

And so it's not a mass movement, but that's millions of people out there, though, who do see common cause and connection with what's going on in Ottawa and elsewhere. Yeah, it's not nothing. Talk to me a little bit more about the politics. Like, I understand you've also looked at how people would feel about their member of parliament supporting the convoy. Yeah, so we asked, you know, if your member of parliament either supports or supported the freedom convoy, how would that impact your vote for that person? And 24 percent say they would either definitely vote for that person or be more likely to. But again, the majority clearly, again, in the side of I don't want my my elected officials, most people saying connected to this. my elected officials, most people saying connected to this. And if you look at the politics,

particularly the conservatives and the risk, and you noticed it in the last few days that there are far fewer conservative MPs who now are outright supporting. I don't know if you'd have Andrew Scheer, the former conservative leader, taking a selfie with the truckers today, because even among conservative supporters, 43% say they'd be less likely to vote for an MP who supports or supported this. So the mood, I think, has shifted. And what we've seen is a divergence between support for the convoy's ideas around the restrictions around COVID and the way and the persistence and the disruption that they're causing. And that's forced, I think, political leaders to have to change their own strategy when it comes to this. Right, right. Interim Conservative leader Candace Bergen has now started to call on them to leave,

even though she initially supported them. Contrary to some, there are thousands of passionate, patriotic and peaceful Canadians on the Hill right now who just want to be heard. Will the Prime Minister extend an olive branch and will he listen? To all of you who are taking part in the protests, I believe the time has come for you to take down the barricades, stop the disruptive action and come together. The economy you want to see reopen is hurting. Farmers. Zooming out again a little bit, are Canadians happy with the way our political

leaders are handling the political response to the pandemic? I would say less and less so. And one of the indicators is, you know, you've heard this being talked about by some political leaders, that Canada has never been more divided than it is today. Mr. Speaker, our house in Canada is not just divided, it is becoming fractured. Those divisions are in our families, yes, they're in our communities, but they are across our province and they're across this nation. From a positive and unifying approach, a decision was made to wedge, to divide and to stigmatize. I fear that this politicization...

So I asked a question. Do you feel Canadians are more divided than usual, about as divided as usual or less divided? And 60% say they feel we are more divided than usual. Interestingly, it crosses the political spectrum. It crosses regional lines, even crosses demographics. So there is a sense that it feels like we're more divided. And so when I ask people who's to blame or who do we point the finger at, of those who think we've become more divided, political leaders like Prime Minister Trudeau are high up on the list. But the Conservative Party is not immune to criticism. And so I think what's happened is what we see is that generally speaking, most Canadians support the public policy choices that our governments and health authorities have made.

But I think when they look at how or why political leaders have emphasized certain policies, they are less thrilled and they are feeling that this issue has become over-politicized and is now leading to the things that we're all talking about, which is the convoy. So I do think it's a kind of pox on all your houses. There's no one who's sort of being blamed far more than any other. But I think the heat often goes to the guy or gal at the top. And in this case, the prime minister, I think, is feeling it, which is why, you know, on Monday, we got word that the government was going to bring in the Emergency Measures Act. And I think that's because the pressure had just built so much that politically he couldn't sit on the sidelines anymore and the federal government had to get involved.

Yeah, yeah, and I know this is anecdotal, but I have been surprised that people in my orbit have been talking so much lately about how angry they are that politicians have been using the pandemic to score political points. The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa or who are holding unacceptable views that they're expressing. Their bodies belong to them. They are masters of their own decisions. And instead of listening to these people, the prime minister has insulted them and name called them and left them with no choice but to engage in legitimate and peaceful protest. If he wants to put an end to this... Well, just consider this. In the same survey we did, one in four Canadians say that a relationship they have in their lives has been harmed because of the pandemic. So it's not just our politics and our democracy, but people's own orbits are being tossed around. And not that everybody pays attention to what's going on in Ottawa and then it affects their day-to-day lives, but there has been a general politicization, whether,

you know, in our own day-to-day lives at work or in our politics at large, that I think has got to the breaking point that people are saying, we're almost out of this pandemic, but what is the long-term legacy going to be of having to have dealt with it? And I don't know the answer yet. Yeah. And before we go to that, you know, I understand that despite the fact that there's this pretty clear majority that's okay with pandemic restrictions. You know, I do wonder how much of the division Canadians say they're appealing is actually more about polarization. Like, I don't think we'd ever expect a society to agree 100% on all issues. But I wonder if feelings on either side of the divide, they're just they're just getting so

strong. It is. And we asked the question, we asked people on a scale from zero to 10, zero, meaning you really dislike this group, or this person and 10, meaning you really like them. How do you feel about the supporters of vaccine mandates? And then how do you feel about the opponents of it? And your point about polarization is really important. Most people in Canada say, I like supporters of vaccine mandates because most support vaccine mandates. But the divide between how they then say they feel about those who oppose them is pretty stark. And so we've come to the point on these issues where we look at the other side and say, I fundamentally don't understand you. I don't know

how you could get that vaccine or how you could not get that vaccine. And therefore, I don't even want to associate myself with this. And so, yes, we're not divided in the sense that we're split 50-50, but we're polarized. And that creates anger and it creates frustration and it creates people occupying our capital city and being willing to do it for over two weeks now. So, no, it is feeding that polarization for sure. David, thank you so much for this. This was super interesting. Thank you. Thanks, Jamie. All right, so before we let you go today, some news from the Cootes blockade at the Alberta-Montana border. The RCMP says it arrested a group of 11 militant armed protesters within the larger blockade. The police say they seized handguns, body armor,

a machete, and 13 long guns, plus high-capacity magazines and ammunition. Police also say a tractor and a semi-truck attempted to ram a police vehicle Sunday night. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.