OTTAWA -- A new survey suggests Canadians are split on believing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that anyone who wants a COVID-19 vaccine will get one by September.
According to the latest survey from Nanos Research, commissioned by CTV News, 50 per cent of respondents either believe or somewhat believe that all Canadians will be able to receive a vaccine by September 2021, while 47 per cent do not believe or somewhat do not believe in the timeline.
“The outright confidence in hitting that target of September 2021 when it comes to all Canadians getting vaccinated, it’s actually very thin right now,” Nik Nanos, founder of Nanos Research, told CTV’s Power Play on Monday.
Despite several delays in vaccine shipments, Trudeau has been adamant that Canada is still on pace with the original plan.
“I speak almost every week with CEOs of these vaccine companies, and they have assured me that they will meet their obligations,” Trudeau told reporters last week.
“Those doses will begin to accelerate and come in the hundreds of thousands in the coming weeks.”
According to CTVNews.ca’s vaccine tracker, just 2.39 per cent of Canadians had received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Monday.
Canadians were also split as to whether they think the federal government should take over control of the vaccine rollout from the provinces and territories, with 48 per cent of respondents either opposed or somewhat opposed to the idea, and 49 per cent supportive or somewhat supportive of it.
Additionally, 60 per cent of Canadians would support the government paying a premium to pharmaceutical companies so Canada could receive more doses faster.
The survey also asked Canadians’ opinion on travelling to other provinces to receive a vaccine sooner and 70 per cent of Canadians oppose the practice.
Two weeks ago, Great Canadian Gaming Corp. CEO Rod Baker and his wife Ekaterina Baker were each fined $1,150 after allegedly travelling from British Columbia to Yukon and posing as local workers to receive a dose of the vaccine ahead of schedule.
British Columbia’s health ministry has indicated that proof of age and residence would be required to receive a vaccine in the later stages of vaccine rollout.
METHODOLOGY
Nanos conducted an RDD dual frame (land-and cell-lines) hybrid telephone and online random survey of 1,036 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, between January 31st to February 4th, 2021 as part of an omnibus survey. Participants were randomly recruited by telephone using live agents and administered a survey online. The sample included both land-and cell-lines across Canada. The results were statistically checked and weighted by age and gender using the latest Census information and the sample is geographically stratified to be representative of Canada.
Individuals randomly called using random digit dialling with a maximum of five call backs.
The margin of error for this survey is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
This study was commissioned by CTV News and the research was conducted by Nanos Research.
