Nearly two-thirds of Canadians believe that the ruling Conservatives are settling political scores with their Fair Elections Act, a new poll has found.

And that skepticism about the motives of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government only rises among people who say they’re “fairly” or “very” familiar with what’s in the bill, according to the poll, conducted by Angus Reid Global.

“The more Canadians are aware of the Fair Elections Act, the more they oppose it,” is the headline on the poll findings, which were shared with the Star in advance of their release on Friday.

There are several bleak realities — not just for the Conservatives, but for citizens in general — in these poll results.

Only 20 per cent of respondents could claim they were in any way familiar with legislation that deals with our most basic right to vote.

Nevertheless, knowledgeable or not, 62 per cent said the bill was being introduced because “the Conservative government is motivated politically and dislikes Elections Canada.” Among those more well-acquainted with the legislation, that suspicion rises to 69 per cent.

The poll was conducted online with 1,511 Canadians of voting age on Feb. 21, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

No one should be surprised by now that Canadians have tuned out of the fine details of legislation before the Commons or politics in general, so the 20 per cent figure is not that jarring.

But the widespread sentiment about what motivates this government — all politics, all settling scores with enemies, all the time — is the worrying bit.

It says that Canadians now expect their democracy to be as nasty and toxic as the politics inside the Ottawa bubble. It says that citizens don’t necessarily expect the government to do the right thing — even on something as fundamental as voting fairness — but rather, the thing that suits the Conservatives’ political ends.

Last week, in his big address to the convention in Montreal, Justin Trudeau told Liberals that Conservatives were not an angry mob — “they are your neighbours.”

On that, he is correct. Within the small neighbourhood that is Parliament Hill, Conservative MPs and ministers, with only a few exceptions, are friendly, interesting and often charming people. They keep smiling through punishing work schedules and a job that keeps them away from home far too much. They don’t snarl when you approach them (again, with a few exceptions) and they don’t seem motivated by hate or revenge.

They don’t fit, in other words, with the nasty narrative that seems to be settling in around their own government. Quite the opposite, in fact. So how did we arrive at this mean, nasty image of Conservatives in power?

A Conservative friend of mine noted a couple of weeks ago how quickly people rush to assume the worst from the PMO these days in the day-to-day political business around Ottawa. Suggestions of dirty tricks? Leaks of personal information (such as the moving expenses of retired Gen. Andrew Leslie)? Tax audits of charities?

It’s usually chalked up to some kind of political vendetta by the highest office in the land.

Of course, the PMO often obliges this speculation by confirming it — including “enemy lists” in briefing books for new ministers before the July shuffle, for instance.

On Wednesday, the prime minister’s spokesperson, Jason MacDonald, said Liberals and New Democrats had been excluded from a delegation to Ukraine more or less because the government didn’t like them.

As any first-year political-science student can tell you, however, the privilege of being in government comes with the responsibility to deal with people you don’t know or even like.

Early after Harper came to power eight years ago, and the signs of the mean streak first emerged, Conservative spinners told us that this prime minister aspired to be respected, not liked. He would do that by showing no favour to friends — having no friends at all, in fact — and by keeping his cold gaze focused on the job. If you got in his way, you’d find yourself under a bus.

The immediate gains from this approach are obvious, in political terms.

The cumulative, long-term effects are emerging though. The ever-growing list of “enemies’ of the government — Liberals, New Democrats, public-service watchdogs, journalists, environmentalists, election officials, charities — expect to find themselves on Harper’s bad side.

But this newest poll shows that a large number of non-political citizens, armed only with their voting rights, may expect to find themselves on the wrong side too.

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Our democratic life can go on, whether or not the public likes, respects or even pays attention to the people in power.

But when two-thirds of the public expresses doubts about the fairness of future elections, that’s a problem — not just for Conservatives, but to the institution of government altogether.

Susan Delacourt is a member of the Star's parliamentary bureau. sdelacourt@thestar.ca

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