Stephen Harper should think more about cementing a Canadian economic union and fighting crime and less about the military and the Arctic, according to a poll that ranks voter attitudes toward the government’s agenda.
Nanos Research and the Institute for Research on Public Policy asked Canadians which they considered the most important of five issues that are listed on the Prime Minister’s website as major priorities for the new majority government. Thirty three per cent of those surveyed identified “cracking down on gun, gang and drug crime” as the issue that mattered most to them.
Twenty-six per cent said “strengthening Canada’s economic union” should be Job One. Almost as many, 22 per cent, believe “improving food and product safety regulations” is what the government should be paying most attention to.
Only 8 per cent are most concerned with “asserting our sovereignty in the Arctic,” and a mere 7 per cent believe “rebuilding the Canadian Armed Forces” should be top of the list.
“Priorities that were closer in proximity to the daily lives of Canadians were ranked higher than those that did not,” pollster Nik Nanos observed ....
