Canadians excited about Trudeau win, less so about key campaign promises on refugees, TFSAs, pot

Opinions over what Trudeau should tackle first depend on where Canadians live, how they voted

November 2, 2015 – As Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau puts the final touches on a soon-to-be-revealed cabinet, Canadians are expressing confidence in his ability to lead – but are far less enthusiastic about some specific policy changes on which the Liberal Party leader campaigned.

Data from the latest public opinion survey from the Angus Reid Institute show that while the majority of Canadians believe he is up to the task and has done a good job of articulating his plans for the future, they are more ambivalent about certain aspects of a Trudeau future.

Key Findings:

Among the areas Canadians would like to see the incoming Trudeau government tackle first – the economy and economic-related issues take priority

While there is majority support (83%) for tax cuts for middle income earners, the same cannot be said for a promised rollback of TFSA contribution limits

More Canadians oppose than support the Liberal promise to re-settle 25,000 Syrian refugees in this country by the end of the year; a promise, that for logistical reasons, is already likely to be modified

The Election outcome: no "morning after" regrets:

Asked how they felt about the outcome of the election, more than half (57%) say they're "pleased" with how things turned out. This sentiment is unsurprisingly most pronounced in BC (60%), Quebec (62%) and Atlantic Canada (70%).

What's also notable about the result is that although they didn't choose Liberal candidates on election night, a strong majority (71%) of those who voted NDP are nonetheless happy with the result. As has been canvassed in past ARI analyses, this finding speaks to a true motivation for change in government that eventually led many NDP supporters to vote Liberal on Oct. 19, trumping much of the disappointment that might be felt over the party's third-place finish. The same cannot be said for Conservative voters however, as seen in the graph below:

Government priorities?

Canadians' agenda for the new government closely reflects the issues they identified as most important during the campaign.

As it did in every poll ARI conducted during the campaign, "the economy" leads the way, with more than a third of Canadians (34%) choosing it as one of the two priorities Justin Trudeau should focus on first.

Other economic issues – such as "jobs/unemployment" (25%), "cost of living" (20%), and "taxes" (16%) – also register high on the list.

The Trudeau Agenda:

Given the predominance of economic issues in the minds of the electorate, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the two most popular Trudeau campaign promises are economic in nature.

Signature elements of Trudeau's tax policy – reducing the income tax rate for the middle class and increasing it for people who earn more than $200,000 per year – enjoy the support of the vast majority of Canadians, but not all of the Liberal leader's economic promises are well-liked.

Summary tables for some key Trudeau campaign promises canvassed in this survey follow. For full results, including responses regarding support and opposition to all promises – see the comprehensive tables here.

More than four-in-five (83%) support cutting the income tax rate for middle income earners, and endorsement for this measure proposal is notably non-partisan. It reaches 80 per cent or higher among those who voted for each of the three major political parties Oct. 19.

Similarly, three-quarters (76%) of Canadians support Trudeau's plan to create a new tax bracket – with a 33 per cent tax rate – for those earning $200,000 or more. As with the middle class tax promise, nearly half of Canadians (49%) say they support it strongly, and majorities of each major party's voters support it. On this measure, however, the CPC majority is considerably narrower (56% support, compared to 87% of Liberals and 83% of New Democrats).

Not all of Trudeau's economic promises enjoy support. Indeed, Canadians are now divided about the prospect of running $10 billion deficits for three years in order to invest $125 billion in infrastructure projects.

These findings are notably different from what ARI found when we asked a more abstract question about deficits and balanced budgets during the campaign. Asked to choose between the opposing statements "the federal government should spend more in the next year on jobs and growth, even if it means deficits in the short term" and "the federal government should balance the budget in the next year, even if it means raising taxes or cutting programs," nearly three-quarters (73%) of Canadians opted for the former.

The comparatively tepid support for Trudeau's deficit plan may be a result of its concrete