Just one in four respondents said were confident that refugees are being thoroughly screened
Article content
OTTAWA — Canadians are split over the federal government’s plan to take in 5,000 Gazan refugees and doubtful that the newcomers are being thoroughly screened by government officials, according to a new Postmedia-Leger poll.
Forty-two per cent of Canadians support the government’s decision to raise the cap on refugee admissions in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while 44 per cent oppose the action. Sixteen per cent say they don’t know enough about the policy to support or oppose it.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Just one in four respondents said they were “very confident” or “somewhat confident” that all refugees coming into the country as a result of the war in Gaza are being thoroughly screened by government officials. Sixty-four per cent of respondents expressed at least some doubts about the rigour of screening protocols in place, including 53 per cent of Liberal voters.
Leger vice-president Andrew Enns said that the respondents’ lack of confidence in the government’s vetting of Gazan refugees reflects a broader loss of trust in government capacity.
“The screening of newcomers to Canada is just one more thing that doesn’t seem, to Canadians, to be working as well as it did five or six years ago,” Enns told the National Post.
The figures were tabulated from an online survey of 1,602 Canadians taken over the weekend, with results weighted to ensure a representative sample of the national population.
Support for the increased intake of Gazan refugees was strongest among NDP voters at 69 per cent. A majority of Liberal, Bloc Québécois and Green Party voters also favoured welcoming more Gazans to Canada. Two-thirds of Conservative voters said they opposed the policy decision.
Advertisement 3
Article content
The federal government announced in May that it had issued 5,000 temporary resident visas to Gazans, under a special program for residents of the war-torn Palestinian territory with relatives in Canada. This was a five-fold increase from the number of visas first announced in December 2023.
At the time of the program’s expansion in May, fewer than 200 visas had been issued, according to a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Marc Miller. A request to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for an up-to-date number wasn’t returned by deadline.
The brewing controversy over Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, who is accused of plotting a terrorist attack in Toronto, has raised alarms over the integrity of Canada’s security screening system. Eldidi was granted refugee status in 2018, despite allegedly appearing in an ISIS-produced execution video three years earlier, and became a Canadian citizen in May 2024.
Eldidi and son Mostafa were arrested in late July for allegedly plotting an ISIS terror attack in Toronto. The two now face nine terror-related charges, including conspiracy to commit murder on behalf of the Islamist organization.
Advertisement 4
Article content
The House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security voted unanimously last week to investigate the process that allowed the father-and-son terror suspects into Canada.
National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com
Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.
Article content
