But a Western Canada-led consensus on the importance of the Asia-Pacific region falls apart on the controversial proposals by two Calgary-based companies to ship hundreds of thousands of barrels of oilsands bitumen daily via pipeline to Asia-bound supertankers docking at B.C. ports, according to the poll of 3,129 Canadians done for the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada.
And 62 per cent of respondents don’t believe major pipeline proposals should go ahead if affected First Nations are opposed.
“Canadians’ support for the promotion of human rights and democracy in Asia seems to be taking a back seat to the potential for economic gain,” concludes a summary of the poll provided exclusively to Postmedia News.
The Asia-Pacific Foundation found that Albertans’ enthusiasm for expanded trade with Asia includes robust support — 60 per cent in favour compared to 29 per cent opposed — for having Asia-bound tankers transporting bitumen from B.C. ports.
British Columbians are generally enthusiastic about expanded Canada-Asia trade but a clear majority of 56 per cent of respondents opposed tanker traffic on the West Coast.
And when asked if the potential risks of transporting oil and gas to Asia from B.C. outweigh the benefits, 55 per cent of British Columbians polled agreed while 37 per cent disagreed.
The results were reversed in Alberta, with 51 per cent of respondents rejecting that notion that the risks outweigh the benefits, compared to 37 per cent who shared that sentiment.
Nationally, Canadians are sending mixed signals on the subject. While 53 per cent of respondents support building pipelines to get bitumen crude to Asia, 47 per cent said the risks of getting crude to Asia outweigh the benefits, compared to 39 per cent who disagree with that proposition.
And Canadians are split on the use of tankers to get the crude to Asia, with 45 per cent in favour and 43 per cent against.
Two Calgary companies, Enbridge Inc. and Kinder Morgan, are seeking National Energy Board approval for new pipelines to get oil to West Coast ports.
The conflict over oilsands pipelines, reflecting clashing political cultures on environmental matters in the two provinces, sends a mixed political signal to a federal government aggressively seeking to expand natural resource exports to Asian markets.
The full results will be released Monday during a presentation by APF Canada President Yuen Pau Woo at a speech in Ottawa to the Economic Club of Canada.
The online poll was done in late February by Angus Reid Public Opinion and has a margin of error of 1.8 percentage points, according to the pollster. The error margins for regions and provinces are higher — ranging from 3.5 points in Ontario to 5.5 points in Alberta — due to smaller sample sizes.
The poll shows considerable enthusiasm for Asia-Pacific trade expansion, particularly among western Canadian and Quebec respondents.
“Support for stronger economic ties between Canada and Asia are strongest in Northern Canada, British Columbia and Alberta. Ontarians are more skeptical with regards to the importance Asian economies play in Canada’s economic well being.”
The poll also suggested a sliding concern about human rights in China. Perhaps coincidently, the Harper government has shifted its focus away from human-rights issues in China as it champions the export to Asia of Canadian natural resources, and especially bitumen crude.
The poll suggests that roughly two-thirds of Canadians believe it’s possible to promote business in China while still raising rights issues, while the percentage of respondents who believe Ottawa should put rights promotion at the top of its policy agenda — 45 per cent — is down a full 10 points from a year ago.
And six out of 10 Canadians polled believe the country should take action on domestic rights issues before preaching to Asians.
“This dampening of views on human rights in Asia is surprising, because it comes at a time when Canadians are less convinced that the human-rights situation in China, notably, is improving,” the report concludes.
The poll showed surprising consistency in several areas between the views of Western Canadians and Quebecers on the importance of Asia, while Ontarians were least likely to view share that view.
For instance, 66 per cent of Albertans, 60 per cent of British Columbians, and 59 per cent of Quebecers agreed with the proposition that strengthening economic and political ties with the Asia-Pacific region should be Canada’s top foreign policy priority. Just 48 per cent of Ontarians and Atlantic Canadians and 53 per cent of respondents from Manitoba and Saskatchewan felt that way.
The poll indicated that 63 per cent of Canadians back a trade deal with Japan, while a smaller portion — 48 per cent — favour a trade pact with China. And 46 per cent liked the idea of open trade with India.
In all three cases Ontarians were less likely than British Columbians, Albertans and Quebecers to support freer trade.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Peter O'Neil
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