As the so-called “Freedom Convoy” comes to an end in Ottawa, Canadians remain divided on how they feel about the protests. According to a new Ipsos poll published Thursday, Canadians’ approval of Justin Trudeau’s handling of the convoy blockade was only seven points higher than that of the protesters.
The poll conducted exclusively for Global News showed that 43 per cent of Canadians approved of the way Trudeau handled the three-week long protests in Ottawa while 36 per cent per cent supported the way the truckers handled themselves throughout the occupation. “What’s particularly worrying is that 52 per cent of the people that we interviewed said that the prime minister’s divisive rhetoric and the way that he approached the protest was mostly responsible for what happened,” Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos public affairs, told Global News. Read more: 46% of Canadians sympathize with trucker convoy, but many disagree with their tactics: poll Bricker explained that Trudeau characterized people who were part of the protest as the ones who voted for the opposition parties, particularly the People’s Party and the Conservative Party, but “the data shows that people aren’t particularly united around any sort of partisan choice.” “This is really a group of the population…who really are feeling left out, left behind and very concerned about the way that the government is not only managing the pandemic, but also the way that the economy is going right now,” said Bricker. “They have a very challenged sense of hope.
But it’s not defined in partisan terms. The prime minister chose to define it in those terms, and the reaction from the public to that has been quite negative.