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The numbers also suggest those who identified as Conservative voters were less favourable toward Indigenous land claims, he said, noting that the majority of Conservative supporters are in the oil and gas producing provinces.

“That sort of creates a spiral around this issue,” Bourque said.

“It has a potential to be divisive: on the one hand, if you’re the Liberal government, if you don’t go far enough in terms of aiming towards reconciliation, then you might alienate Green party supporters, NDP supporters out there and potentially some Bloc supporters as well. But if you go too heavy-handed into this to try and appease Conservative supporters, then you’re losing your left-of-centre support that you desperately need.”

It may not be all bad news for Trudeau’s minority government, however.

The Liberal party’s overall polling numbers have remained relatively stable, in the mid-30-per-cent range since the October federal election, dropping just two percentage points to 32 per cent since the last Leger survey was conducted in early February.

Bourque said he believes this means even though the public may be unhappy with how Trudeau has handled the B.C. pipeline and blockade issue, overall the issue is only cementing the partisan lines that already exist.

“Responses to the other questions are telling us (the Liberals) adopted the best strategy, which was to take (their) time and try to aim for a peaceful resolution and a getting back to the negotiating table,” Bourque said.

“But it also looks, from a partisan and political perspective, it’s becoming tougher and tougher for the Liberal party in Western Canada.”

The online survey of 1,540 Canadians was conducted Feb. 28 to March 2 for The Canadian Press and cannot be assigned a margin of error because Internet-based polls are not random samples.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2020.