With the federal public service strike into its second week, a new poll has found that Canadians are divided between the union and the federal government.
Ipsos, on behalf of Global News, polled 1,000 Canadians between April 21 and 24 and found that 38 per cent of Canadians are either strongly (16 per cent) or somewhat (22 per cent) on the side of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).
Meanwhile, 28 per cent said they are either strongly (10 per cent) or somewhat (18 per cent) on the side of the government. Thirty-four per cent said they don’t know enough to say either way, and 47 per cent said they don’t know enough to say who is being the most fair.
“I think a lot of Canadians aren’t paying a ton of attention to the strike at this point,” Sean Simpson, a senior VP at Ipsos, told Global News.
“They’re dialed out.”
PSAC’s strike entered its ninth day on Thursday with workers continuing to demonstrate outside “strategic” government locations. The delivery of federal services continues to be affected while workers remain on strike, as growing backlogs of immigration and passport applications are not being processed.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said that in the past week, about 70,000 immigration files that should have been processed were instead put on hold. The minister said his department had planned to announce last week that it had returned to the certain service standards achieved before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in 2020, but the standards dropped as the strike started.
And massive Canada Revenue Agency slowdowns remain at the height of tax season as the filing deadline looms next Monday. The CRA has said it does not plan to extend the deadline.
Given it is only a week into the strike, Simpson said not a lot of people have a vested interest yet in either side, but there is slightly more sympathy for the union — at least, for demands that don’t require a lot of money.
Despite the higher support for PSAC, 54 per cent of respondents said that Canada cannot afford to give public servants a raise of 4.5 per cent a year right now, which is a key demand of the union. Meanwhile, 58 per cent said the demand to work from home was reasonable.
As for the lack of strong opinions, Simpson said Canadians largely aren’t affected yet by the strike, but that could change if it drags on and some find they can’t get their passports for a summer vacation, or their refund from a tax filing.
“We may see more hostile views towards the labour negotiation,” Simpson said. “There is the potential for this to go sideways for the government or union if they can’t control the public message.”
“It could turn into a much more precarious situation for either side,” he added.
Once anger builds, Simpson said that’s when the public may go more in on either side, while opinions now aren’t that “baked in.” He thinks the public is leaning slightly to the union currently because of recent scandals with the federal government, with inertia not on the latter’s side.
But, that lagging in public opinion may cause the government to take a hard stance with the union to not look like pushovers, according to Simpson, and show they are being careful with taxpayers’ money.
“A lot is at stake here, not just for the union but for the government’s own reputation,” he said.
Support for the union was strongest among younger people, the poll found, with 54 per cent of Gen Z in favour of PSAC, while support for the government was high among Baby Boomers at 36 per cent.
Simpson said younger people are generally more supportive of work-life balance, which matches some of PSAC’s demands, such as for remote work and extra pay on evenings and weekends. That support could mean trouble for the Trudeau government, whose core constituency has historically been younger generations, Simpson said.
— with files from The Canadian Press