New poll says 27% of Canadians view the United States as an ‘enemy’ country

OTTAWA — A new poll suggests that more than a quarter of Canadians — 27 per cent — now see the United States as an “enemy” country, while another 30 per cent still say they consider the U.S. an ally.

Another 27 per cent of respondents to the Leger survey said they consider the United States to be a “neutral” country.

The poll comes as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to impose economically devastating tariffs on Canada and has repeatedly pushed the idea that Canada should become a U.S. state.

The poll was conducted between Feb. 14 and Feb. 17 and surveyed 1,500 Canadians and 1,000 Americans. Because it was conducted online, it can’t be assigned a margin of error.

Sébastien Dallaire, Leger’s executive vice-president for Eastern Canada, said he was surprised “to see Canadians so divided on that front when the United States has been an ally for such a long period, and a strong ally at that.”

He said “enemy” is a “strong word.”

“The responses basically speak to the level of animosity that we feel right now in Canada and that are triggering kind of a broader rally-around-the-flag effect in all aspects of our lives,” Dallaire said.

Only one per cent of Americans told Leger they consider Canada an enemy country, while 56 per cent said they view Canada as an ally.

An overwhelming majority of Canadians dislike Trump; 74 per cent of respondents said they have an unfavourable view of the U.S. president. Dallaire said it’s “hard to get more consensual results when you ask a question like this.”

Seven per cent said they didn’t know enough about Trump to offer an opinion, while only 13 per cent overall said they had a favourable opinion of him.

That number is higher among Conservative party supporters; 27 per cent of them said they have a favourable view of Trump, compared to only five and seven per cent of Liberal and NDP supporters, respectively.

Conservatives were also more likely to have a positive view of the United States — 48 per cent of Conservative supporters surveyed described it as an ally, while only 18 per cent called it an enemy state.

Just 20 per cent of Liberals and 21 per cent of NDP supporters said the U.S. was an ally, while 37 per cent of Liberal supporters and 34 per cent of New Democrats said it was an enemy. Nearly half of Bloc Québécois voters — 47 per cent — said the United States is an enemy country.

“There is a partisan difference in terms of how people feel about this,” Dallaire said. “It’s clearly a pretty big gap between Conservative supporters and Liberal, NDP and Bloc supporters.”

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 20, 2024.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press