Most say they support LGBTQ2S+ Canadians, but actions don’t line up: poll

Less than half of Canadians polled are likely to sign petitions, speak up against homophobic or transphobic comments online, or attend a rally in support of the queer community.

While Canadians broadly support LGBTQ2S+ people and issues, they are less likely the engage in behaviours that show true allyship for the community, new polling conducted for Global News has found.

The majority of Canadians – 78 per cent – believe transgender people should be protected from discrimination in employment, housing and access to businesses. Seventy-four per cent believe that same-sex couples should have the same rights to adopt children as straight couples. However, the latest polling, conducted by Ipsos, found only a dismal one-in-10 consider themselves to be an active ally to the queer community.

Just under half (47 per cent) of Canadians express some degree of support, either in that they consider themselves active allies and/or engaged members of the community (10 per cent) or that they support the LGBTQ2S+ community, but do not actively engage in allyship (37 per cent).

And regardless of how people view their ally or supporter status, the polling also found there’s a noticeable say-do gap in general support versus active engagement.

Less than half of the 1,000 Canadians polled said that they are likely to engage in forms of active support, such as signing petitions (46 per cent), speaking up against homophobic or transphobic comments online (48 per cent), or attend a rally in support of the queer community (32 per cent.)

“When you move beyond just that kind of superficial type of support and you start to get into systems of specific areas of support and things that people would have to do, that’s where you start to see things get a bit softer,” Darrell Bricker, CEO, Public Affairs for Ipsos, told Global News.

Bricker says polling has shown this “softening” of support in recent years, and points to a number of factors at play.

“Most people have a pretty much a live-and-let-live perspective and they just want to leave it at that. They don’t necessarily feel that they need to move beyond that,” he explained.