Canadians are split over whether government should support protesters in Iran: poll

Canadians are divided over whether government support should be offered to protesters in Iran, according to a new poll.

Just 26 per cent of Canadians said the federal government should publicly declare support for the protesters, while 30 per cent said it should not, according to a national poll conducted by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies. Forty per cent of respondents said they didn’t know and four per cent did not respond.

The numbers were similar when Canadians were asked if Canada should pressure allies to support Iranian protesters. The poll found that 22 per cent said “yes,” 33 per cent said “no,” 41 per cent said they “don’t know” and five per cent preferred not to respond.

“I was surprised at the extent to which there seemed to be a fair bit of reticence on the part of Canadians to extend support for the protesters,” Jack Jedwab told National Post. Jedwab is the president and CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute.

“I thought (support) would be higher. My takeaway from it is when you look at the people who say, ‘I’m following it,’ or, ‘I have a good knowledge of the issues,’ they’re far more inclined, in the reasonably strong majority, to say that support should be provided for the protesters.”

The uprising in the Middle Eastern country began at the end of December after its economy collapsed. Initially, shopkeepers in the nation’s capital of Tehran took to the streets, The New York Times reported . But soon, university students and other Iranians joined in and the protests have continued into the new year.

They eventually turned deadly, with some sources estimating the number of fatalities at 12,000 as of last week. On Wednesday, the Iranian government said the number was much lower. In a state television broadcast, the Interior Ministry and the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs said 3,117 had been killed, The Associated Press reported. A Canadian citizen was among those killed, Foreign Minister Anita Anand said last week.

The protests have sparked outrage on a global scale, including in Canada, as Iranian leader Ali Khamenei continues to try to squash the rebellion and enforce a communication blackout.

Canadians have gathered in the thousands for demonstrations in support of the Iranian people. One such event took place in Montreal on Jan. 10 and another in downtown Toronto on Wednesday evening.

However, according to the new poll, only a quarter of Canadians say they are closely following the protests and only about three in 10 say they have good knowledge of the underlying issues.

“That suggests that there’s some importance here in making people more aware of what’s happening there,” said Jedwab.

“We’re not getting news out of Iran, and that’s part of the strategy, I presume, to try to prevent news from getting out, and that will make it more challenging for people to have a greater understanding of what’s going on there and how it’s evolving.”

But as Jedwab noted, awareness about the issue significantly boosts support.

Among those who are following the events, nearly half support pressuring allies and 57 per cent support a public declaration of support by the Canadian government. It’s similar for Canadians who have greater knowledge about the situation in Iran. The poll found that45 per cent support Canada pressuring allies and 52 per cent support a public declaration of support for the protesters.

“I suspect what we’ll probably see is a lot of the Iranian population in Canada and the United States try to make more information available,” said Jedwab. “My sense is that the majority of Iranians in Canada are probably quite concerned with what’s going on there.”

The online survey by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies was conducted from Jan. 16 to Jan. 18 among 1,527 respondents in Canada. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey. A probability sample of 1,527 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

• Canadian citizen killed at the hands of the Iranian authorities, Anita Anand says
• Ali Siadatan: What many in the West fail to understand about the Iranian protests

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