Crisis has brought Canada together, poll suggests

WASHINGTON • Canadians believe the COVID-19 crisis has brought their country together, while Americans blame the pandemic for worsening their cultural and political divide, a new international public opinion survey suggests.

Fully two-thirds of Canadian respondents to the Pew Research Center study released Thursday say they believe Canada is more united as a result of the novel coronavirus, while 77 per cent of U.S. participants feel precisely the opposite is true south of the border.

“In the U.S., where a patchwork of coronavirus-related restrictions reflects broad disagreement over the best path to economic recovery while mitigating the spread of the virus, roughly three-quarters say that the U.S. is more divided than before the coronavirus outbreak,” the centre said.

“In contrast, nearly three-quarters in Denmark say there is more unity now than before the coronavirus outbreak. More than half in Canada, Sweden, South Korea and Australia also say their countries have become more united since the coronavirus outbreak.”

A similar bilateral gap emerged when those surveyed were asked about how their respective countries responded to the emergency.

In Canada, 88 per cent of respondents said they approved of their country’s response to COVID-19, compared with just 47 per cent of Americans who feel the same way about how the U.S. has responded.

Women who took part in the Pew survey reported a disproportionate impact from the pandemic in 12 of the 14 represented countries. In Canada, 69 per cent reported that their lives had changed either a “great deal” or a “fair amount,” compared with 57 per cent of men.

The Canadian portion of the Pew study involved 1,037 respondents across the country who were surveyed by phone between June 15 and July 27, and the American section had 1,003 U.S. participants who took part between June 16 and July 14.

Both components of the survey carry a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The Canadian Press