In the lead-up to the Liberals' Budget 2024 (to be released April 16) an Angus Reid Institute poll found three-in-five (59%) Canadians said Ottawa was spending too much even before $18 billion in recent spending commitments were announced.Nine-in-ten (87%) current CPC voters say the federal government is spending too much overall, with Bloc voters not far behind at 76%.Importantly, 2021 Liberal voters who still support the party are much less likely than those who have since changed their support to another party to say that government spending is too high (29% versus 47%). Only 8% would spend more..Three-in-five Canadians (59%) would trim foreign aid. One-in-three or more also say that they would cut from government services (32%), environmental programs (32%) or indigenous spending (39%).Only 6% of Canadians believe too much government money is spent on health care and two-thirds (67%) would spend more.Further, half (48%) would increase spending on national defence. The Liberal government announced on April 8 that it would do so in the coming years, despite announcing a billion dollars of cuts last fall. Canada has faced considerable pressure from NATO allies to spend 2% of GDP on defence. New investments will bring spending from 1.4% closer to 1.8%.Although Canada spent more than 4% of GDP on the military in the Diefenbaker Conservative era that ended in the early 1960s, no Canadian federal government has spent so much as 2% since the Mulroney Conservatives did so in 1991.Views of where to spend money also fall along political lines, with a few exceptions. All party supporters are more likely to say spending in health care should be increased and foreign aid should be decreased. There are sharp partisan divides, however, over indigenous and environmental programs. While current CPC voters would cut from each, Liberal and NDP voters would sustain or increase them..Two-thirds of Canadians say they worry over the federal deficit. By party supporter, seven-in-ten (68%) Conservative voters say they are “very concerned” about the federal deficit, outnumbering current Liberal (12%), NDP (15%) and Bloc (20%) backers who say the same.At least half of Canadians say they would follow through with both dental care and pharmacare, though they differ about whether to fund these programs..The Angus Reid Institute conducted the online survey from March 20-22 among a representative randomized sample of 1,602 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. The survey was self-commissioned and paid for by ARI.
