Vast majority of Canadians support either abolishing or reforming the Senate

Things have got to change.

That’s the clear message poll respondents gave when asked about the future of the Senate, in which a mere 14 per cent of Canadians said the upper chamber should be left as is.

Among the others, 45 per cent say it should be reformed, while 41 per cent said it should be abolished.

But it’s not the scandal and outrage hanging over the Senate since 2012 –firmly in the spotlight as Mike Duffy’s criminal case goes to trial — that will influence these respondents at the polls in October, the Angus Reid poll released Tuesday showed.

READ MORE: Will the Duffy trial hurt the Senate, PMO, Duffy or all of the above?

According to the poll, only 16 per cent of respondents, or one-fifth, said the issues plaguing the upper chamber will be a deciding factor for their decision in this fall’s federal election.

Perhaps that has to do with the fact one in five (16 per cent) respondents said they haven’t seen or heard anything about the Senate expense scandal, while one-third (29 per cent) said they’ve just scanned headlines.

Only 19 per cent of the poll respondents said they were following Senate stories in the news and discussing it with friends and family. That leaves 36 per cent, who said they’d seen some coverage and had the odd conversation with others about the issues facing the Senate.

READ MORE: Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth: airplane food is ‘ice cold Camembert and broken crackers’

The poll was conducted last month as suspended Senator Patrick Brazeau was headed to court to defend himself against charges of assault and sexual assault and Duffy’s criminal trial – in which he faces 31 charges – inched ever closer.

All the while, suspended Senator Pamela Wallin was back in the headlines with the RCMP filing documents in court in an effort to obtain more documents in their criminal investigation into her expense claims, the federal auditor general continued his forensic audit of more than 100 former and sitting senators’ expenses and Senator Nancy Ruth had eyes rolling across the nation when she complained about cold camembert and broken crackers served on airplanes.

Angus Reid conducted this poll of 1,500 Canadians on March 11 and 12 and carries a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.