Six in 10 Quebecers in favour of developing new pipelines, new poll reveals
Posted August 21, 2023 11:37 am.
Last Updated August 21, 2023 12:55 pm.
A recent poll released on Monday reveals that 6 in 10 Quebecers believe that independent producers should be allowed to sell electricity directly to companies and are in favour of developing new pipelines for oil and gas to supply Europe and Asia.
The poll was conducted by Ipsos for MEI, an independent public policy think tank, with offices in Montreal and Calgary, and surveyed a representative sample of 1,163 Canadians aged 18 years and over, between August 1st and 4th, 2023.
“The Quebec population is much more open to developing our energy resources than are its representatives at the National Assembly,” stated Renaud Brossard, senior director of communications at the MEI, in response to the survey’s results.
Across the country, two in three respondents (67 per cent) are favourable to the development of oil and gas pipelines to ports in Eastern and Western Canada in order to export to Europe and Asia. In Quebec, the proportion is slightly lower, at 61 per cent.
Six in ten Canadians say they are in favour of developing and exporting natural gas to Europe in order to reduce its dependency on Russian gas. Two in three Quebecers are in favour of doing so.
In the context of the announced end of Hydro-Québec’s surpluses, 62 per cent of Quebec respondents support the idea of allowing independent electricity producers to sell their energy directly to companies.
51 per cent of Quebecers are also in favour of developing the province’s oil resources to meet its internal demand, while 6 in 10 Canadians can’t or don’t want to pay more in taxes to fight climate change.
The poll was conducted among a representative sample of 1,163 Canadians aged 18 years and over, between August 1st and 4th, 2023. The results are accurate to within plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
