According to the Pew survey, 76 per cent of Canadians still say they have confidence U.S. President Barack Obama will ‘do the right thing regarding world affairs.’KEVIN LAMARQUE/Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama's leadership inspires far more confidence among Canadians than Americans. And most Canadians are – like the President – less than convinced of the merits of funnelling vast amounts of Alberta's heavy oil sands crude through the Keystone XL pipeline to refineries along the Gulf Coast.
As Canadians gird for a federal election and Mr. Obama enters the final phase of his two-term presidency, a Pew Research poll released Tuesday provides insights into how Canadians regard their larger, more powerful neighbour to the south as well as what scares them among international threats.
Perhaps most striking is how strongly Mr. Obama has retained high confidence levels among Canadians even as his support has sharply declined in the United States. Most current polls show the President's approval ratings in the low 40s among Americans. But 76 per cent of Canadians still say they have confidence the U.S. leader will "do the right thing regarding world affairs," according to the Pew survey.
While Canadian confidence levels have declined from the staggering high 88 per cent Mr. Obama's enjoyed in 2009, shortly after he was elected, they remain far higher than among Americans.
On Keystone XL, the controversial, long-delayed pipeline that has soured relations between Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has personally lobbied on behalf of TransCanada Corp's scheme to get landlocked Alberta's crude to global markets and higher prices by sending it across the United States, many Canadians apparently share Mr. Obama's disquiet over the $8-billion project.
Pew found 48 per cent of Canadians oppose Keystone XL, compared with 42 per cent who want it. Among residents of the four largest provinces, only in Alberta, where 65 per cent back the pipeline, was there a majority favouring it. In Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, support dropped into the 30s.
In addition to sharp regional differences, Pew also found that younger Canadians and those who are better educated – both groups more likely to share Mr. Obama's view that global warming poses an existential threat and mining the vast carbon-heavy oil sands would make things worse – were far more opposed to Keystone XL. But support for Keystone XL was also stronger among the richest Canadians – those making $100,000 annually or more – than middle- and lower-income respondents.
Support for Keystone XL in the United States remains roughly 2-1 in favour of the pipeline. Most Republican presidential hopefuls have vowed to approve it. All the declared Democratic candidates for the 2016 elections have said they will reject it.
Mr. Obama has yet to decide on the current application, seven years after it was filed, but is widely expected to reject it later this year.
Although Pew's poll was conducted last May, long before this week's deal sealed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, creating world's largest trade bloc that includes Canada, the United States and 10 other nations, it found strong support for the pact among Canadians. More than half of Canadians polled backed TPP; only 31 per cent thought it would be bad for the country. Support was strongest among Conservatives, men and Albertans. Support for TPP is roughly the same in Canada and the United States.
While far more Canadians expressed a favourable view of the United States than of China, most believe the communist regime in Beijing will eclipse the U.S. as the "world's leading superpower." Yet only 13 per cent of Canadians said it was more important to have strong economic ties to China, compared with 73 per cent who responded strong ties to the United States were more important.
Pew also asked Canadians what worried them most. Islamic State topped the list, followed by climate change, Iran's nuclear program and cyber attacks. The question was asked before Iran, the United States and the five other world major powers concluded a nuclear limitation pact this summer.
The poll in Canada, part of Pew's broader survey of 2015 Global Attitudes, involved telephone interviews with 1,004 adults respondents across all provinces. The territories were excluded and the margin of error was 3.6 per cent.