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After the meeting, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called Scheer’s comments racist and Green Party leader Elizabeth May said she agreed with the decision to snub the Conservative leader.

However, an Ipsos Canada poll revealed that a majority of Canadians want tougher action against the protesters, although there was a wide regional divergence on the issue.

The poll conducted over the weekend found that 61 per cent of Canadians don’t think the blockades are justified. In Alberta, 76 per cent of people are inclined to think the protests are not justified with British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba reflecting a similar but slightly lower number. In Ontario and Quebec just over half the people in those provinces believe they are not justified.

Young Canadians are most inclined to see the protests as legitimate, with 58 per cent of people aged 18-34 saying they are justified.

And while 53 per cent of Canadians — and 69 per cent of Albertans — support police intervention, that number drops to 42 per cent in Quebec and 48 per cent in Ontario.

Photo by Codie McLachlan/Reuters

Despite these views, Canadians are increasingly demanding support for Indigenous people. Seventy-five per cent of people in the country believe the government must act now to helps raise the quality of life for Aboriginal people in the country, up from 63 per cent in 2013.

The Conservatives have not relented in their calls for police action against the blockades. As MPs filed into their caucus meeting on Wednesday morning, they echoed their leader’s words, on radical activists, the rule of law and protecting jobs and the economy.

Asked on Wednesday morning if he was concerned about police intervention getting out of control and provoking a larger crisis — reminiscent of the 1990 Oka crisis — Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said he had another concern on his mind.

“I do worry that the government is encouraging disorder and elevating the risk by preventing the police from doing their job and enforcing the law,” said Poilievre.

In Quebec, where recurring tensions between Mohawk communities and police forces date back to the Oka crisis in 1990, many Quebec Conservative MPs say they support Scheer’s call for RCMP intervention to put an end to the blockades.