Steady Growth in Canadian Support for NAFTA

Support for Canada's involvement in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Mexico has grown in the past two and a half years from 64% of Canadians to 70%, according to an Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll conducted last week.

Support for NAFTA is running at or around 75% among decided voters for most of the main parties - the exceptions are decided NDP voters (47%) and decided Green Party voters (63%). Residents of British Columbia (56%) and Saskatchewan/Manitoba (64%) are the least supportive of NAFTA involvement.

Despite the 70% approval, only half (51%) think NAFTA has benefited Canada to date. However, this is up from 40% in January 2001. One-quarter (25%) of Canadians today think NAFTA has hurt Canada, down from 32% in January 2001, and one-fifth (19%) continue to think it has had no impact (22% in January 2001).

With NAFTA having just passed its tenth anniversary, seven in ten Canadians (69%) also believe that it is a positive trend that the Canadian and US economies have been growing closer together over the past few years (22% 'very positive', 46% 'somewhat positive'), while 27% think it is a negative trend (12% 'very negative', 15% 'somewhat negative').

The poll was conducted between June 3rd and 5th and is based on a randomly selected sample of 1006 adult Canadians.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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