New Carbon Tax polling shows divided Canada, edge to Trudeau

A new report out from Global News today uncovered internal government polling showing Canadian's attitudes towards the federal government's carbon tax.

The polling, done by Toronto firm Forum Research Inc., was commissioned by the Privy Council Office in an effort to understand how Canadians would react to the Trudeau's government's plans to enact a rebate on the carbon tax imposed upon the four unwilling provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.

While the results showed some of the well established regional differences on the topic of carbon taxation, their was also an interesting gender difference that came to light in this recent round of polling.

The poll asked respondents, without any prompted options, to name their top priority for the federal government. Among female respondents, the most common answer, at 17%, was the "environment and climate change" along with "healthcare."

For male respondents, the top answer was "the economy" at 20% followed by the "environment and climate change" at 11% and then cost of living, taxes, debt, and deficits all coming in at around 6%.

Unsurprisingly, a greater percentage of women support the carbon tax than men,  at 50% to 43%. Disapproval numbers showed a big difference too with only 21% of women saying they dislike the tax compared to 37% of men.

On the regional side of things, Canadians in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, despite their provincial government's disapproval of the carbon tax, still slightly support the measure with 46% in favour and 44% opposed.

In Ontario, despite the Ford government's steadfast opposition to the tax, 43% of Ontarians support the new tax while only 32% remain opposed. On the national level, 47% of Canadians support the carbon tax while 29% do not.

The poll also quizzed respondents on why they either supported or opposed the federal government's carbon tax and rebate plan. As reported by David Akin of Global News, here are the top three reasons on both sides:

What's remarkable about the reasons of those opposed to the carbon tax is that they very closely mirror the talking points Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer has been using in his fight against the carbon tax.

While this latest round of polling shows that more Canadians may support the revamped carbon tax plus rebates approach than oppose it, it still lacks a strong majority approval across the various regions on Canada as well as between men and women.

With an election only 9 months away, the Prime Minster will have his work cut out for him as he tries to convince more Canadians that his carbon tax is the best, or even effective, approach to fighting climate change.