Leading up to the first anniversary of Barack Obama’s historic victory, two polls were conducted to gauge what Canadians think of the 44th president of the United States.
A Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll was conducted between October 8 and 12. This poll has a margin of error of 3.1%, 19 times out of 20. The survey asked Canadians about Barack Obama’s job performance and 19% of respondents characterized it as “excellent” while almost half, 45% said that it was “good”. Ontario had the most positive responses with 75% of those polled saying Obama was doing an excellent or good job. The approval fell to 55% in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The way that Canadians view the American president is in sharp contrast to Obama’s dropping poll numbers in the United States. A recent Gallup Poll reported that Obama’s job approval rating is 53%; near the bottom of presidential approval ratings after one year in office. Less than half of Americans polled believe that Barack Obama can successfully conclude the war in Afghanistan, improve healthcare, control government spending and heal the nation’s political divide.
The Canadian pollster believes that Canadians view Obama more favourably than Americans do because he is attempting to institute a healthcare system that is similar to Canada’s. The observation was also made that Canadians do not follow the day to day workings of the U.S. administration as closely as Americans do and this may account for the results. Another point is that Canadians do not have to worry about any tax consequences of Obama’s spending; after all, Canadians will not have to pay them.
The Historica-Dominion Institute, a Canadian non-profit also commissioned a poll about the United States and Obama’s first year in office. This poll was conducted a couple of weeks after the Harris/Decima survey and has the same margin of error. While the results concerning Obama’s performance were similar to the Harris/Deciman poll, his survey went further and asked respondents to give their views about Americans and the United States in general.
Eighteen per cent of respondents hold an unfavourable opinion of Americans as individuals. This is only down slightly from the 22% that held this view in a similar survey that was conducted four years ago during the middle of the George Bush presidency. Forty per cent of Canadians told the pollster that they do not feel at home when they visit the United States and almost one-half of respondents; 46% disagree with the statement that the United States is a force of good in the world.
The conclusion from these polls are that Barack Obama remains more popular here than he is in the U.S., mainly because his far left views and attempts to socialize medicine is moving the United States closer to how Canada is governed. And despite Canadians’ overall approval of the president, anti-Americanism is still present.
There is less talk of anti-Americanism in Canada these days. This can be put down to the fact that it is simply politically incorrect to run down a country that’s run by a president who is not only a leftist, but black. But the fact that almost one in five Canadians say that they do not like Americans as individuals, anti-Americanism is not going to go away any time soon.
