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Slim majority of Canadians open to paying more to help cut Canada’s emissions, poll shows

A narrow majority of Canadians are open to paying more to help Canada cut its greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new poll from Nanos Research.

The survey comes amid a federal election campaign in which, for the first time in more than a decade, all of the major parties are proposing some form of a price on carbon as part of their election platform. But the level of the carbon price, how it is rebated back to Canadians and the stringency of emissions-reduction targets vary widely between the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Green Party.

Overall, the poll shows that 27 per cent of Canadians are willing to pay more in areas like taxes and the price of gas to help the country hit its emissions targets. A further 27 per cent said they were somewhat willing to pay more. However, 30 per cent said they were not willing to pay more, 14 per cent said they were somewhat unwilling and two per cent said they were unsure.

Same story at CTV as they and the Globe commissioned the poll.

I don’t have a lot of faith in this poll, it’s a hybrid telephone/online sample. People tell pollsters what they think they want to hear and online polls are meaningless.

The poll consisted of a hybrid telephone and online random survey of 1,029 Canadians. The results were gathered between Aug. 28 and 30. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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