As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to journey to China and seeks to revive commerce and diplomatic ties, a small majority of Canadians say they help extra commerce with Beijing, a brand new ballot suggests.
The Ipsos ballot performed completely for World Information, launched Saturday, discovered that 54 per cent expressed help for nearer commerce ties and financial agreements with China.
The outcomes mark a turnaround from 2020, when eight out of 10 Canadians needed the nation to rely much less on the Chinese language market amid a nadir in relations sparked by overseas interference allegations in opposition to Beijing and the arbitrary detention of the “two Michaels.”
Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, says the brand new ballot’s outcomes “are much less about China and extra about the US” and the financial realities of U.S. President Donald Trump’s commerce warfare.
“The explanation that it’s bounced again isn’t rapidly individuals have fallen in love with China, which is why the numbers are mushy,” Bricker stated in an interview.
“The explanation that they’ve bounced again is as a result of persons are occupied with who on the planet we’re going to commerce with. And the second largest inhabitants on the planet, and the second largest economic system, might be a spot that we have to have some type of a relationship with.”
Ipsos contacted 2,001 Canadian adults in early December 2025 for the ballot.
Carney will probably be in China for 5 days beginning Tuesday, marking the primary official journey to the nation by a Canadian prime minister since 2017.
He’ll meet with Chinese language President Xi Jinping in the course of the journey, which the Prime Minister’s Workplace stated will construct on the 2 leaders’ first assembly on the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation discussion board in South Korea final October.
Relations with Beijing plunged to new lows in 2018 after China jailed Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor for nearly three years, in a transfer extensively seen as retaliation over Canada’s arrest of Huawei government Meng Wanzhou on U.S. fraud prices.
Whereas that supply of stress was resolved after the three had been launched in 2021, commerce relations have continued to endure. Canada has imposed a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese language electrical automobiles and a 25 per cent import tax on metal and aluminum over the past two years, in strikes that matched the U.S.
China responded with a 100 per cent tariff on varied Canadian agricultural merchandise final March, together with canola and peas, plus a 25 per cent levy on pork and seafood merchandise.
China’s ambassador to Canada has stated Chinese language tariffs could be eliminated if Canada dropped its EV tariffs. Political leaders in tariff-hit provinces like Saskatchewan have referred to as on Ottawa to do all it may well to get the agricultural tariffs lifted.
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Since changing into prime minister, Carney has stated it’s vital to re-engage and “reset” with China within the face of Trump’s tariffs. Canada’s overseas coverage has subsequently shifted from looking for to isolate China to pursuing a “strategic relationship” that balances co-operation with competitors.
Carney stated in September 2025 that Ottawa ought to be “clearer about the place we interact” with China — that Canada may collaborate “deeply” with Beijing on vitality, local weather change and primary manufacturing, whereas sustaining “guardrails” round nationwide safety issues.
“We’ve got to be actually cautious about our relationships with China, to not attempt to broaden and deepen them, to show ourselves sooner or later to much more issues down the street,” stated Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow on the College of Ottawa who research Canada-China relations.
“We’ve got to be involved about what guardrails are going to be arrange for the medium and long run and never discover ourselves being utilized by China as a wedge with the U.S.”
She added that Carney should guarantee Canadian companies aren’t “taken to the cleaners” when getting into the Chinese language market and that “we are able to’t allow them to anyplace close to our superior applied sciences or synthetic intelligence or vital minerals.”
McCuaig-Johnston and Kovrig, now a senior advisor to the Worldwide Disaster Group, stated Carney should additionally keep away from dropping Canada’s EV tariffs in alternate for Chinese language tariff reduction.
“If Canada does that, then it could hole out its car manufacturing sector inside a decade,” Kovrig stated in an interview.
Critics of China and Xi, corresponding to Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, have instructed World Information that Canada ought to be cautious about deepening financial ties with Beijing. They are saying the detentions of Kovrig, Spavor and different Canadians lately show China and Hong Kong are “not secure locations” for enterprise and commerce.
“Are we going to reward China for what they’re doing [by doing business with them]? I don’t suppose that’s OK,” stated Andy Wong, president of the Ontario non-profit Canada-Hong Kong Hyperlink.
Financial advantages vs ‘shared values’?
Saturday’s Ipsos ballot suggests Canadians are extra enthusiastic about commerce offers that prioritize direct advantages to the Canadian economic system and price of residing than points like nationwide safety, the setting and human rights.
Seventy-one per cent of these surveyed stated advantages to Canadians are both very or critically vital for buying and selling relationships, with 26 per cent contemplating it a “deal-breaker.”
Two-thirds of ballot respondents stated financial alternative for Canadian companies ought to be prioritized.
That quantity falls to 60 per cent who put significance on human rights, 52 per cent for nationwide safety and 46 per cent in environmental requirements and “shared values” between Canada and its buying and selling companions.
Moreover, the ballot discovered simply 25 per cent of Canadians agreed that Canada ought to solely pursue “values-based commerce” agreements with international locations that share its values on democracy and human rights, “even when it means slower financial development.”
“The opposite 75 [per cent] is saying, ‘Look, I do know there are points right here, however an important factor for me is that it pays off for Canada by way of our financial pursuits, and it’s going to repay for individuals like me personally,’” Bricker stated.
“I feel in occasions of loads, when individuals don’t really feel they’re beneath risk, the values arguments turn out to be extra vital within the dialog. However … Donald Trump has moved this dialog to a unique place that folks have turn out to be extra self-interested.”
Nonetheless, Kovrig warned these values shouldn’t be ignored whereas pursuing commerce with China.
“Financial interplay with China now comes with a a lot increased price ticket of measures you need to take to guard democracy, human rights, safety and sovereign independence,” he stated.
Slightly below 20 per cent of Canadians surveyed by Ipsos stated Canada ought to commerce with international locations which have completely different values with a purpose to use commerce as leverage for human rights enhancements.
A near-equal quantity, 18 per cent, stated Canada ought to pursue “pragmatic commerce” that disregards the human rights data and home politics of buying and selling companions, as long as the agreements provide mutual financial advantages.
Simply 16 per cent stated they supported protectionist insurance policies that might see Canada give attention to home manufacturing whereas decreasing reliance on worldwide commerce.
— with information from World’s David Akin and The Canadian Press
These are a few of the findings of an Ipsos ballot performed between Dec. 5 and 11, 2025 as a part of our Trump, Tariffs, and Turmoil syndicated research. For this survey, a pattern of n=2,001 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed on-line, through the Ipsos I-Say panel and non-panel sources, and respondents earn a nominal incentive for his or her participation. Quotas and weighting had been employed to stability demographics to make sure that the pattern’s composition displays that of the grownup inhabitants in response to Census knowledge and to supply outcomes meant to approximate the pattern universe. The precision of Ipsos polls, which embrace non-probability sampling, is measured utilizing a credibility interval. On this case, the ballot is correct to inside ± 2.7 share factors, 19 occasions out of 20, had all Canadians been polled. The credibility interval will probably be wider amongst subsets of the inhabitants. All pattern surveys and polls could also be topic to different sources of error, together with, however not restricted to, protection error and measurement error. Ipsos abides by the disclosure requirements established by the CRIC, discovered right here: https://canadianresearchinsightscouncil.ca/standards/
