Canadians divided over when COVID-19 vaccine mandates should be lifted: poll

The Ipsos poll found the number of Canadians who want to wait longer for mandates to end is higher than those who want them gone immediately — but not by much.

Canadians are divided on when COVID-19 vaccine mandates should be lifted for various activities, a new poll suggests, with no clear consensus on when life should return to the way it was before the pandemic.

The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found the number of Canadians who want to wait longer for those mandates to end is higher than those who want them gone immediately — but not by much.

“Canadians are, I would say, fairly tentative about how they’re looking at the next period of time,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.

“Yes, there are people who want to go right away, but an awful lot of us just are really taking our time.”

The poll — which surveyed over 1,000 Canadians earlier this month online — asked if mandates should be lifted this year, sometime next year, 2023 at the earliest, or not until an external factor like COVID-19 cases becoming negligible or the World Health Organization declaring the pandemic over.

Respondents were asked to make one of those choices for several activities, including air and train travel, dining at a restaurant or watching a movie in a theatre, entering the workplace, and working in a hospital or long-term care facility.

While anywhere between 22 and 35 per cent of those surveyed said they want mandates gone by the end of the year or earlier for those activities, 28 to 34 per cent said either sometime in 2022 or not until at least 2023. Between 36 and 47 per cent, meanwhile, chose an external factor, depending on the activity.

Bricker notes that more people were comfortable lifting mandates quickly for activities they may have already experienced themselves, like dining out or working at the office.