Media coverage about Andrew Scheer’s faith hurt him with voters: Angus Reid poll

OTTAWA – A month 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% 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 same-sex 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, with 14 per cent saying 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.