On the eve of the March 19 federal budget, a new poll suggests only a minority of Canadians want the government to cut taxes, while half want Ottawa to spend more on social programs.
The Strategic Counsel conducted the survey between March 10-13 for Â鶹´«Ã½ and The Globe and Mail.
Economists have said Ottawa's planning surplus could reach $8 billion for the next fiscal year, and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is expected to include several tax cuts in the federal budget.
"It will reinforce the image voters have that these guys are pretty solid fiscal managers who care about the rich, but really don't have a common touch in synch with the general public mood," Strategic Counsel chairman Allan Gregg told CTV.ca.
When respondents were asked what they thought to be the most important issue for the budget to address, social programs were the clear favourite:
- Increasing spending on social programs: 50 per cent
- Cutting taxes: 19 per cent
- Transferring funds to the provinces for their use: 15 per cent
- Reducing debt: 13 per cent.
"Canadians are experiencing right now something that we refer to as 'joyless prosperity,'" said Gregg.
"They believe the economy is in good shape and we're having fewer people anticipating the future with economic dread. We have more people today claiming that they are better off financially than they were 10 years ago since I've been tracking (results) in the past 30 years."
Yet the mood is still not optimistic, he said.
"That's because (Canadians) believe that in the face of this prosperity, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer ... And secondly, that our social safety net is unravelling in the face of this prosperity -- our health care system is worse, our education system is worse, the quality of life in our cities is deteriorating."
Two other issues the poll suggests Canadians are concerned with are fiscal imbalance and income splitting -- although reports say it's highly unlikely Flaherty will include the latter in Monday's budget.
When respondents were asked whether they thought the claim of a so-called fiscal imbalance was believable, the majority said yes:
- Very believable: 31 per cent
- Somewhat believable: 43 per cent
- Total believable: 74 per cent
- Not too believable: 11 per cent
- Not believable at all: 6 per cent
- Total not believable: 17 per cent
In Quebec, where polls show the Bloc Quebecois has bled support to the federalist Conservatives, 76 per cent believe there is a fiscal imbalance. In a Sept. 7-13, 2005 poll, that number was 66 per cent.
"What's happened is that (Premier Jean Charest) and (Prime Minister Stephen Harper) together have raised the expectations on this fiscal imbalance issue," said Gregg.
"Quebecers are decidedly more of the view that fiscal imbalance actually exists than they were back in September 2005. They are less likely to believe that they get less out of federation than they put in, so the notion that we deserve something and that there's something wrong that needs to be redressed is much greater than it was before."
But he added that this could create an adverse effect in the West, where voters believe in the fiscal imbalance but think they are giving away too much money to needier provinces.
"You could have a situation where Quebecers are saying, 'That's not enough,' and Western Canadians are saying, 'That's way too much,'" said Gregg.
A politically safe issue for the Conservatives to address may be income splitting. The poll suggests that a total of 74 per cent of respondents support the plan, with little variation within specific provinces.
But government officials have told The Globe and Mail that income splitting would be far too great a drain on government resources, costing about $5 billion in taxes.
Technical notes
- Results are based on tracking among a proportionate national sample of Canadians 18 years of age or older.
- Interviews were conducted between March 10 and March 13, 2007.
- The national sample size is 1,000. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
- The Quebec sample is 247. The margin of error is plus or minus 6.3 percentage points.
