The idea that the Government of Canada should launch an independent inquiry into foreign interference in the last two federal elections has the support of a majority of Canadians, but a new poll adds that the country’s electoral system is safe for seven respondents on ten.
The firm Léger interviewed 1,544 people between March 10 and 12 about the Canadian electoral system and recent allegations of foreign interference.
The results suggest that 71% of Canadians believe the electoral system is secure, while 29% believe it is not. And the majority, 69% of respondents, said they generally trust the results of elections in Canada. One in five said they didn’t trust it, and 11% said they didn’t know.
Allegations that China meddled in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections have dominated debate on Parliament Hill in recent weeks, following a series of reports by the newspaper The Globe and Mail and Global News.
The reports, based on leaks from security sources, detailed allegations that China tried to intervene to back candidates seen as friends of the Beijing regime and to ensure the Liberals secure a minority in 2021.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that he will soon appoint a prominent Canadian with a broad mandate to investigate the allegations and make recommendations on next steps the government should take. Opposition parties are instead calling for a public inquiry into what happened.
The poll suggests there is a strong partisan divide in opinions about the election in general. Christian Bourque, executive vice-president of Léger, argues that “it is those who tend to be right-wing voters who seem to show greater distrust of the traditional institutions of our democracy, such as elections. »
The poll suggests that 93% of respondents who vote for the Liberal Party (PLC) believe the electoral system is safe. Conservative Party (CCP) voters are split, with 52% saying they felt the system was safe and 48% saying the opposite.
Liberal and New Democratic Party (NDP) supporters were the most likely to say they generally trust election results in Canada, with 92% of Liberal voters and 81% of New Democrat voters.
Confidence in the election was slightly lower among Bloc Québécois (BQ) supporters, at 75%, and Green Party (PV) voters, at 64%.
Just 55% of Conservative voters said they generally trust the election, while 36% denied trust. The lowest trust was observed among supporters of the People’s Party of Canada.
Christian Bourque does not believe that there would be so much doubt in the election results had it not been for the rise in power in the United States of former President Donald Trump, who continues to reject the legitimacy of the presidential race of 2021. “Our system of government is based on fair and open elections, and only seven out of 10 Canadians believe that is the case right now,” the pollster noted.
He adds that calls for a public inquiry do not follow partisan allegiances. “It strikes me that Canadians want to get to the bottom of things.”
A third of respondents said the potential for foreign interference is “so great that it greatly undermines the legitimacy of the election results”. But the poll also indicates that a third of Canadians have heard nothing about foreign interference.
The poll cannot be assigned a margin of error as online polls are not considered truly random samples.