A survey, conducted by Ipsos Reid for Postmedia News and Global Television, found 55 per cent of respondents neither liking nor disliking the budget, 24 per cent saying it was bad and 18 per cent saying it was good. Three per cent said they didn’t know.
Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Reid’s public affairs division, said the survey shows the public’s perception of the budget is relatively “benign.” That’s despite the fact that, in advance of the budget, a poll found 49 per cent expected a “bad-news budget.”
“Pre-budget polling showed that it could potentially be explosive, (but) it looks like the government kind of got through on this one,” he said.
Among the other highlights of the budget unveiled late last month — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first with a majority government — are plans to gradually raise the eligibility age for Old Age Security to 67 from 65; to balance the budget in four years; and to phase out the penny.
Cutbacks were expected leading up to the March 29 budget, with many anticipating even deeper cuts than were announced.
Still, there was more negativity expressed about this budget than was found in a similar poll conducted by Ipsos Reid after last year’s budget. In that one, 19 per cent said it was a good budget versus 16 per cent, who said they didn’t like it.
Bricker said this is likely the result of more people being personally affected by some of the measures in this year’s budget.
Ipsos found that 28 per cent of respondents felt this budget hurts them personally, seven per cent said they would benefit from it, 63 per cent said they would not be affected and two per cent didn’t know what the consequences were for them directly.
Last year, 13 per cent of respondents said the budget would hurt them while 10 per cent felt helped by it.
The latest poll had 40 per cent saying the budget had too much spending in it, 26 per cent said it focused too much on deficit reduction, 29 per cent said it had the right balance and four per cent did not have a particular opinion on the matter.
Despite some of the misgivings or general indifference respondents had over this budget, most — 55 per cent — said they approve of the government’s management of the economy versus 44 per cent who said they did not approve and one per cent who were unsure.
The Tories’ approval rating on the economy is up one point from February, the polling firm said.
“What this shows is they’ve maintained their strength as good economic managers — the perception of being good economic managers — through what could’ve been a very tough budget,” Bricker said.
Approval was highest in Alberta at 74 per cent and lowest in Quebec at 38 per cent. Elsewhere, it was 61 per cent in British Columbia, 66 per cent in Saskatchewan and Manitoba combined, 58 per cent in Ontario and 51 per cent in the Atlantic.
The figures were based on polling conducted April 3 and 4 of 800 Canadian adults in random phone interviews, plus 1,009 from an online panel. Ipsos Reid said it used weighting to accurately reflect Canadian demographics, and a completely random survey of this size would accurately represent the population within two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Bricker said “conventional wisdom” would suggest that if the survey were taken a day or two later, the Tories’ approval ratings might drop as a result of the fallout from the auditor general’s recent accounts that the planned purchase of F-35 fighter jets will cost at least $10 billion more than what the government has publicly stated.
However, he added that this government has often been able to escape hits to its popularity after various controversies, including a $50-million spending program related to the 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville, Ont., which saw large amounts of money spent on things such as a gazebo and other beautification projects in the riding of cabinet minister Tony Clement, several kilometres away from the summit site.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Derek Abma
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