RELIGION AND VOTERS
Faith hurt Scheer
Amonth after an election campaign that was uniquely focused on the religious views of Andrew Scheer, a new poll shows just how negatively the electorate viewed his Catholic faith.
Among voters who knew he was a Catholic, 51 per cent said the Conservative leader’s personal faith had a negative impact on their opinion of him.
The poll from the Angus Reid Institute comes after an election campaign where the Liberals highlighted the religious faith of Scheer, accusing him of being out of touch on issues like samesex marriage and abortion rights.
“The issue was used very effectively as a political wedge or cudgel by the Liberals and by Justin Trudeau, which speaks to the ability to drive wedges among the electorate in this day and age,” said Shachi Kurl, the executive director of the Angus Reid Institute.
“I think some of it has to do with the way religion — particularly as it intersects with politics — is polarized in 2019, but I think it also had a lot to do with a lack of anticipation on the part of Scheer around what might have been coming and how he might have handled that,” she said.
The poll by the Angus Reid Institute highlights the complicated — and sometimes contradictory — views of Canadians on public faith.
Although 63 per cent of Canadians say they are neutral about the idea of a candidate being a person of faith, 22 per cent say it repels them, and 14 per cent say it attracts them to that candidate.
Breaking the numbers down by party affiliation shows a big divide in Canada, with a slim majority of Bloc Québécois voters saying a person of faith would repel their support. Among Liberal supporters, 26 per cent said a person of faith repels them, while that number was 19 per cent for the NDP and 14 per cent for the Conservatives.
Two-thirds of Canadians say they were aware of media coverage about the religiosity of Scheer and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh but they drew very different conclusions about the reporting, the poll says.
While a bare majority saw Scheer’s faith negatively, only 24 per cent of respondents said the same about Singh, who is a practising Sikh.
In contrast, just 31 per cent of respondents were even aware of any coverage about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s faith, with about 36 per cent of those saying that Trudeau’s Catholic faith negatively affected their opinion of him.
During the election, Scheer was dogged by questions about his views on same-sex marriage and abortion.
In a post-election panel, former Conservative cabinet minister Peter Mackay said the issue of Scheer’s social conservatism was a “stinking albatross” around the leader’s neck and that he was never able to deal with it satisfactorily.
The Liberals kicked off their attacks on Scheer in August by publicizing a 2005 speech he made in the House of Commons opposing same-sex marriage and Scheer was repeatedly pressed by reporters on the campaign trail about his personal beliefs on abortion.
Although Scheer said he wouldn’t introduce any legislation on either issue, the Angus Reid Institute poll shows that it may not have been enough to allay voters’ concerns.
Only 32 per cent of Canadians say they would believe assurances from a politician about keeping their personal views out of politics, while 41 per cent say they would have doubts and 27 per cent say they wouldn’t believe the person at all.
It’s a big concern that, in the minds of many voters, faith is reduced to little more than an indication of a person’s views on same-sex marriage and abortion, said Daniel Proussalidis, the director of communications for Cardus, a faith-based think tank in Ottawa, which produced the opinion poll with the Angus Reid Institute.
“Historically, religion has been understood as this driving force behind all sorts of public activity,” said Proussalidis. “And it seems that the public dimension of faith is being forgotten or opposed. Or maybe it’s being overshadowed by other issues. But when you look at faith, it’s really a lot deeper, a lot broader and affects a whole lot more things than just those two hot button issues.”
The biggest contrast between supporters of Canada’s major political parties came on how much a leader’s personal views on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage affected their voting decision.
More than 80 per cent of NDP and Liberal Party supporters said a candidate’s views on those issues was a factor in whether or not they voted for them. For Conservative Party supporters, that number was 46 per cent.
When they respond to these kind of polls and when they are casting a ballot in the election, voters are connecting the dots from faith to issues that have been associated with it in popular media and politics, said David Rayside, a University of Toronto political scientist who has written extensively on faith in politics and conservatism in Canada.
“At the centre of the Conservative Party is a fundamental tension and no leader can fundamentally or easily escape that tension. And the tension comes from the fact that they have a disproportionate support among religious conservatives,” said Rayside. “And the bulk of the party is not particularly preoccupied so much by social issues. But in closely fought elections they need that portion of the electorate that believes strongly in a set of fairly traditionalist social values.”
Canadians are split, though, on whether a leader’s personal faith should even be a matter of concern for the media during the campaign. Fifty-five per cent of Canadians say a person’s faith should be off-limits with fortyfive per cent disagreeing.
The Angus Reid Institute poll also creates a “public faith index,” which sorts people into supporters of public faith — those who encourage the idea of boosting people’s knowledge about faith and recognizing its importance in society — and opponents of public faith, who think religion should have a reduced role in society.
The index lists 36 per cent of respondents as proponents of public faith, with 35 per cent as opponents and 30 per cent uncertain.
But more than half of Canadians agreed with the statement that “reducing the presence of religion in our public life is a sign of progress in our society,” according to the poll.
The poll was conducted online by the Angus Reid Institute among a randomized sample of 2,057 Canadians and carries a margin of error of two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.