Ban on foreign homebuyers, national dental care among policies Canadians want to see continue: poll

In just over a month, Canadians will be headed to the polls to vote in a new government. A new CityNews-Leger poll reveals what voters want to see move forward from the last government.

More than half of Canadians believe the ban on foreign homebuyers, 59 per cent, and the national dental care plan, 53 per cent, should be continued by the next government, regardless of who gets elected.

Pharmacare and the $10 a day child care were close behind with 47 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the legalization of marijuana, carbon pricing, and Indigenous reconciliation initiatives were policies that Canadians are less likely to want to see continued.

While interest in the top three policies listed was high among Conservative voters, nine per cent said they didn’t want any of the above them to continue.

Liberal and NDP voters are more likely than Conservative voters to say nearly all these policies should be continued.

At the time of the poll, more than 60 per cent of Canadians felt the carbon tax needed to be evaluated, with 43 per cent saying it should be removed altogether and 21 per cent saying a different carbon pricing schedule should be implemented.

That was driven mostly by Conservatives, with 76 per cent of those voters saying they wanted the carbon tax gone. Another 16 percent felt carbon pricing should be kept in place, and 20 per cent were unsure or said they didn’t know. Liberals, NDP and Green Party voters favoured the options of a different carbon tax or keeping it in place.

Support for removing the carbon tax was the lowest in Quebec, with only 26 per cent of those polled saying it should be eliminated.

One of Mark Carney’s first actions as prime minister was to remove the consumer portion of the carbon tax, which will come into effect on April 1. The price for big industrial emitters remains in place.

When it comes to housing prices in Canada, two-thirds of those polled agreed that immigration has been a significant factor contributing to the rising price of buying a home in the country.

And there is a little optimism that housing prices will become more affordable.

Only 35 per cent of Canadians disagreed that prices could become more affordable and that neither their province (75 per cent of those polled) nor the federal government (77 per cent of those polled) was doing enough to manage the issue.

The online poll was conducted between March 10 and 13 among 1,504 Canadians aged 18 years of age or older, which were weighted according to age, gender, region and education to ensure a representative sample of the Canadian population. A probability sample of this size would yield a margin of error of +/- 2.49 per cent.