Most Canadians support oil and gas expansion, differ on priorities: Ipsos
Global News
New data suggests the majority of Canadians support efforts to expand oil and gas development, including expanding and building pipelines — but within that, their support differs.
New data suggests the majority of Canadians support efforts to expand oil and gas development, including expanding and building pipelines — but within that data, their support shifts when it comes to the specifics of how to do that, according to Ipsos polling.
That finding comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney has been working to speed up the development of major projects, including new oil and gas projects in Canada amid the trade war, and after Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith reached a memorandum of understanding towards building an oil pipeline from Alberta to Canada’s West Coast.
A newly released Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News asked 1,500 adult Canadians in December how they were feeling about Carney’s oil and gas pipeline plans amid the trade war.
Eighty-three per cent of respondents said they at least somewhat agree that Canada should focus on expanding oil and gas exports to other countries beyond the United States because of the current trade war and U.S President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and 34 per cent of those said they strongly agree.
The majority of respondents — 68 per cent — also said they support building a new oil pipeline to the northern coast of British Columbia, but slightly prefer expanding the output capacity of infrastructure which already exists first, with support for that latter option at 72 per cent.
Ipsos noted the attitudes towards these oil and gas pipeline goals appear to be informed by the economic impact the trade war with the U.S. is having on Canada’s economy.
“This is an environment that wasn’t there for Stephen Harper, for example, when he was trying to build pipelines. Certainly, for Justin Trudeau, he was dead set against it, even though they did build the Trans Mountain Pipeline. But that wasn’t a building of a new pipeline, that was just doubling up capacity on one that already exists,” says Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.
“This is the most favourable public opinion environment I can remember when it comes to building infrastructure around oil and gas.”
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