A new poll suggests a majority of Canadians are aware of the federal government’s carbon pricing plan, but don’t intend change their behaviour when it comes to fighting climate change.

In answering the survey conducted last week by Forum Research poll, 62 per cent said they were aware or very aware of the plan, but 53 per cent said it wouldn’t change their behaviour.

Nonetheless, almost half of the respondents — 49 per cent — said they would accept an increase of two to five per cent in their costs to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

“People find that acceptable, so there is a market for the carbon plan within reason,” said Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff. “They can’t go crazy and it can’t be crazy high. There is no support for that, but in the two-to-five per cent range, it looks like there is an opportunity there for the government.”

Bozinoff said the results suggest the government needing to do a better job of explaining the plan to Canadians, and what the costs and benefits might be.

“There are still a lot of people, 38 per cent, almost four in 10, that are not very or not at all aware, so that tells me that the federal government has a lot to do in terms of explaining their plan,” he said. “Especially in Quebec, their French communications strategy, they need to take a hard look at that.”

Fifty-five per cent of respondents in Quebec said they were not very or not at all aware of the federal plan.

Read more:

The Baltic Sea offers a preview of what’s to come with global warming

Age and political leanings best indicate where Canadians stand on climate change, new poll shows

Bozinoff said the 53 per cent of respondents who said the carbon plan wouldn’t change their behaviour should be looked at in context.

“I don’t think they know the key elements (of the plan), or they may not know enough to know what impacts that it will have on behaviour,” he said.

And as for those who said it would impact their behaviour, “That’s pretty good, if you can get 40 per cent of the population to do something.”

The results come on the heels of recent reports that issued dire warnings about climate change, and just days after Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government — which has vowed to fight the federal plan in court — released details of its own plan.

“Very often the public discourse becomes I’m in favour or against it,” Bozinoff said. “Some provinces say they are out of the plan, but I don’t know if the public knows exactly what they are out of, and what they are proposing instead, and the differences and nuances of those different plans, in terms of what the plan is, how it would work, and how it would achieve the goals.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“It is a slightly complicated topic and does need some communication to the public, and other than these headlines — ‘It’s a tax, it’s not a tax,’ that type of stuff — I think just a more targeted discussion is needed with the public.”

The poll was conducted by telephone with 1,541 randomly selected Canadians on Nov. 28 and 29. Results based on the total sample are considered accurate within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Read more about: