Posted on 07/22/2006 5:10:39 AM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA- Despite media reports highlighting complaints and frustration about Canada's efforts to evacuate thousands of its citizens from Lebanon, two-thirds of Canadians give Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government a passing grade for its handling of the crisis, says a new opinion poll.
The Ipsos Reid survey of 1,023 people, conducted on Thursday night on the Internet for CanWest News Service and Global National, found 66% of respondents were satisfied when asked about the government's response to "the largest evacuation of Canadian citizens in Canada's history."
"I think Canadians are looking at this and saying, 'This is a war zone,' " said John Wright, senior vice-president of Ipsos Reid.
"This is not a situation where the Princess Cruise Line is coming into Lebanon to pick up people. This is a desperate situation with shelling, and there's going to be chaos and lack of organization."
Only 34% felt the government response was "slow and unacceptable," with the strongest criticism coming from Quebec, where 50% of respondents were unhappy.
Nearly eight out of 10 respondents said Canadian citizens had the right to expect the government to evacuate them from a dangerous area, although most did not think taxpayers should be footing the bill for emergency efforts.
"What we're seeing here is an interesting entitlement argument towards the government: that when Canadians are caught in a difficult situation, it actually is an obligation of the government to help them get out of it, regardless where it is," Mr. Wright said.
"There's also a sentiment that there should be no open cheque- book from the government or taxpayers." He suggested that many Canadians see the evacuation as a costly exercise that could set a dangerous precedent, forcing the government to pick up the tab any time someone is caught in a conflict zone. "That is a bigger issue that is going to spark some debate," he said.
The survey also found 56% of respondents believed the evacuees were "unreasonable in demanding that the government get them out of the war zone quicker and without cost." But 57% of respondents in Quebec disagreed with that view.
Many headlines from Quebec on the Middle East crisis have taken a local angle since last week, when a vacationing family from Montreal died in Lebanon during an Israeli air strike.
The Prairie provinces were the most likely to be supportive of the government's response, with a satisfaction rate well above 70%.
The Ipsos Reid survey is considered to be accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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Then way must we keep having to listen to the 34% complain? This lays out the main reason the MSM and Press are losing it's audience, because they pander to the complaining, hypocritical, minority opinion.
Why don't we see a poll of what Canadians think of those who traveled to this very dangerous area, and how they expected their government to come and bail them out? The more I read about how many warnings were given to stay out of Lebanon, the more these stories infuriate me!
Sounds like these people should not have been there to begin with!
>>thousands of its citizens...<<
With a population of only about 33 million (CIA Factbook), I am surprised that there should have been "thousands" of Canadians there at any one point in time. Two questions come to mind: 1) How many of those "thousands" were short-term tourists caught there by accident when the conflict erupted? 2) How many of those "thousands" are long-time residents who "happen" to have a Canadian passport (or maybe even dual citizenship)?
My point is that many of those rescued may have only tenuous (mere "de jure") ties to the country bailing them out. Anyone care to speculate on this?
There's a more-insightful article on this topic elsewhere at this forum:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1670372/posts
The liberal media screws up again, because their negative message is being countered by 'truth' and 'reason'... Two things that the CBC, CTV and the Globe and Mail will never accept, nor report.
I read an article that suggested exactly that. Thousands of those claiming Canadian citizens are actually Lebanese with dual citizenship.
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