Canadians applaud Freeland, spurn Sohi, Hussen in poll

OTTAWA • Canadians appear to be throwing their support behind Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland after the sealing of a new trade deal with the U.S., but rebuking the ministers of energy and immigration, according to a new survey assessing the performance of Liberal cabinet members. A poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that Freeland received the highest approval rating of any minister in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, with a score of +20 (derived by subtracting the percentage of respondents who said her performance was “bad” from the percentage who said she had a “good” performance over the last year). The next-highest score was awarded to Transportation Minister Marc Garneau, at +16.

Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi, who has overseen the contentious Trans Mountain pipeline file, received the lowest approval rating of any minister at -36. The minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, Ahmed Hussen, received the second-lowest rating at -26.

The Angus Reid poll heard from 1,800 Canadian respondents through an online survey between November 28 and December 6. The results fall within a margin of error of two percentage points, 19 times out of 20. It found Canadians’ recognition of cabinet ministers has improved since 2017, when six out of every 10 Canadians said they could not name more than five cabinet ministers. The same poll this year found the same ratio of people could now name 11. (Each participant in the poll was shown either 11 or 12 photos of ministers, along with their name and title, and asked whether they thought that minister was doing a good job, a bad job, or whether they didn’t recognize the minister in question or know enough about their performance to form an opinion.)

Those poll was conducted from Nov. 28 to Dec. 6, after Freeland negotiated a tentative new trade agreement with the U.S., ending more than a year of tense and closely-scrutinized negotiations. Meanwhile, Sohi has had to navigate a second round of government negotiations with First Nations communities who oppose the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, after Ottawa purchased the existing project for $4.5 billion in August. Hussen has been immigration minister amid a rising number of people seeking asylum in Canada, which has put heavy stress on the system that oversees such claims.

Finance Minster Bill Morneau received among the lowest scores at -20 (or, 23 per cent of respondents saying his performance has been “good”, while 43 per cent say it has been “bad.”) That was equal to his 2017 score, despite Ottawa introducing its controversial small business tax changes that year, which received fierce blowback from the business community. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains also received a -20 score. Some of the more moderate scores included Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna (-8), Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan (-7) and Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott (-9). Among 10 of the most prominent cabinet ministers, Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan received the lowest approval rating among survey respondents who had previously voted Liberal, with a score of +18. Freeland scored the highest among these voters at +65, with Garneau in second at +57. Among Conservativeleaning respondents, Hussen (-46) and Morneau (-40) scored the lowest. Morneau was the most recognized minister in the survey, with 83 per cent of respondents saying the recognized him, followed by Freeland (79 per cent), Sajjan (76 per cent) and McKenna (75 per cent).