POLL: 76 percent of Canadians want pause on immigration

The poll—commissioned by True North—says that 76 percent of Canadians strongly or moderately agree that: “Canada should temporarily pause immigration until a vaccine is developed for coronavirus and the unemployment rate drops down to pre-coronavirus levels.”

The poll was done by a Toronto research company called ONE, according to True North.

A consensus regarding the immigration pause can be seen in the survey throughout all regions, education levels, age groups, income levels and both of Canada’s official languages.

Two-thirds or 67 percent of residents who voted Liberal in the 2019 election support the statement along with 66 percent of NDP voters. Conservative voters show a stronger consensus with 67 percent who strongly agree with the statement and 22 percent who moderately agree. Among Bloc voters, 48 percent strongly agree and 39 percent moderately agree.

Canadians also agree that the country’s temporary immigration programs should currently be suspended.

About 61 percent of respondents agree that “Canada should temporarily pause the Temporary Foreign Workers program until a vaccine is developed for coronavirus and the unemployment rate drops down to pre-coronavirus levels.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in April pointed out that, until there is a vaccine, the country will not return to normal.

“Normality as it was before will not come back full-on until we get a vaccine for this… that will be a very long way off,” Trudeau said during a daily coronavirus briefing. “We will have to remain vigilant for at least a year.”

The economy in Canada may need years to recover as the unemployment rate increased from 5.6 percent in February 2020 to 13.7 percent in May 2020—an all-time high.

There were 1,000 Canadian surveyed by ONE from June 3 to June 6 in a national representative sample. The margin of error for the survey is +/-4.3 percent.