OTTAWA — A large majority of Canadians across the political spectrum believe the Conservative government has responded well to the earthquake crisis in Haiti, a new poll suggests.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey found that 71 per cent of respondents ranked the federal actions as good (41 per cent) or excellent (30 per cent), with another 19 per cent characterizing the response as fair.
Just five per cent of the more than 1,000 Canadians polled Jan. 21-24 said the government response has been poor.
“A majority of Canadians from all walks of life — and political stripe — tend to feel good about the federal government’s response to the disaster in Haiti,” said pollster Doug Anderson.
Self-identified Liberal voters (72 per cent), New Democrats (63 per cent) and Bloc Quebecois supporters (62 per cent) all gave the government good or excellent grades on the relief effort.
Fully 88 per cent of Conservative respondents approved.
The multi-partisan praise for the Harper government’s disaster response stands in contrast to voter intention results from the same survey period, which found that Conservative support stalled in a statistical dead heat with the Liberals at just above 30 per cent.
Opinion was far more divided on the question of relaxing immigration policies for Haitian victims of the disaster.
Some 53 per cent agreed Canada should make allowances and 38 per cent said this is not a step the government should take.