46% of Canadians sympathize with trucker convoy, but disagree with their tactics: poll

An Ipsos poll published Thursday showed that nearly 46 per cent of Canadians sympathize with the frustration of the trucker convoy protesters.

The trucker convoy protest movement against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions that has paralyzed the Canadian capital and spilled over to key Canada-U.S. border crossings has the sympathy of many Canadians, according to a new poll.

An Ipsos poll published Thursday and conducted exclusively for Global News showed that nearly 46 per cent of Canadians say they “may not agree with everything” the trucker convoy says or does, but the frustration of protesters is “legitimate and worthy” of sympathy.

This sympathy has risen to 61 per cent particularly among Canadians aged 18 to 34, according to the poll.

On the other hand, 54 per cent of Canadians who participated in this poll believe that people taking part in the protests do not “deserve any of our sympathy” and that what they “have said and done is wrong.”

“It’s not that people are tired. They’re very frustrated,” Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos public affairs told Global News. “And what’s happened is that this protest has become a lightning rod for that frustration.”

Bricker said the results of the poll show that Canadians don’t necessarily agree with the blocking of Parliament Hill in Ottawa or the Nazi imagery popping up in some protests, but most are frustrated with the COVID-19 mandates.

“Canada has one of the highest levels of vaccination, so Canadians have listened and complied…yet we’re still stuck. They feel they’ve done whatever it is that they were asked to do and they feel that we still haven’t gotten back on track,” Bricker said.

As a result, as the truckers started rolling in and expressing their frustration, people joined in by expressing their concern about the future of the economy and the cost of living, he explained.