Size matters: majority of Canadians don’t want a bigger deficit, says Ipsos poll

The Liberals promised a deficit of no more than $10 billion during the election – and according to a new Ipsos poll, the majority of Canadians don’t want the Liberals to break that promise when they unveil their budget next week.

The Liberals themselves have suggested the deficit could grow to $18 billion, while some experts think it could even go as high as $30 billion.

But a new Ipsos poll, conducted exclusively for Global News, shows that three-quarters of Canadians (73 per cent) think the government shouldn’t raise the deficit above the $10-billion campaign promise.

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But the poll also suggests a majority (63 per cent) of respondents thought the Liberals knew the deficit would be larger than $10 billion during the election campaign “but they said it anyway just to get elected.”

That’s in spite of a poll released Thursday which suggested Canadians are okay with the Liberals breaking election promises.

“I think people are of the view that promises made during election campaign should be kept, but they also understand that they’re a communications tool used by parties … to win elections,” Ipsos CEO Darrell Bricker said.

“However, on the deficit, there is this view that you have to have a a really good reason to cross that line and go into the red.”

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Bricker also said that Canadians’ hesitancy towards deficits stems from the fact they’ve been told that deficits are bad for the past 30 years.

“So to all of a sudden say ‘well actually, we think deficits are okay,’” requires some explaining, Bricker said.

WATCH: The Liberals promised a deficit of no more than $10 billion during the election – and according to a new Ipsos poll, the majority of Canadians don’t want the Liberals to break that promise when they unveil their budget next week.

0:59 Majority of Canadians don’t want a bigger deficit: Ipsos poll

The poll also suggests public support for the deficit would dwindle significantly as it gets bigger.

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Support for a balanced budget is the strongest: 74 per cent would like the books to be in the black.

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Though Trudeau has called infrastructure projects ‘unsexy’ he says it’s the proper way to stimulate the economy.

While the poll suggests the majority of Canadians (56 per cent) approve of the plan, it also found most Canadians would prefer the government to cut taxes rather than spend money on infrastructure.

When asked about the alternative of raising taxes to running a larger deficit, most people (79 per cent) said they would prefer a deficit.

The information and/or data may only be rebroadcast or republished with full and proper credit and attribution to “Global News Ipsos.” These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between March 14 and 16, 2016, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,008 Canadians from Ipsos’ online panel was interviewed online. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ – 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled.