Support for Northern Gateway project increasing: Poll
While British Columbians remain staunchly divided on the Northern Gateway pipeline, a new poll suggests more residents are in favour of the project than they were 10 months ago.
The Insights West survey, conducted between Nov. 12 and 15 and released Thursday, found that 42 per cent of respondents support the controversial project, a seven point jump since a similar poll done in February.
Conversely, opposition to the project has dropped by 14 points, according to the poll, to 47 per cent from 61 per cent at the start of 2013.
Insights West says the level of “strong opposition” to the project has fallen nine points to 29 per cent, while “strong support” increased five points to 16 per cent.
Mario Canseco, vice-president of public affairs at Insights West, said at the start of the year strong opposition to the pipeline outranked strong support by an almost four-to-one margin, now it’s less than two-to-one.
“While a large proportion of British Columbians continue to have reservations about the project, the numbers are very different from what we observed at the start of the year,” he said, in a statement Thursday.
Support for the Northern Gateway is particularly high among men (50 per cent) and residents aged 55 and over (49 per cent). Opposition is strongest with women (55 per cent) and residents aged 18-to-34 (57 per cent,)
Some of the reasons people say they support the project are job creation, economic growth and new capital investment.
The poll also cites a jump in the number of people who think the pipeline will benefit First Nations communities, up to 53 per cent from 40 per cent in February.
Results of the poll have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.