OTTAWA — A government survey of people's attitudes towards the Liberal plan to resettle 25,000 Syrians suggests those in support weren't worried about terrorism.
But 35 per cent of those polled who didn't support the plan were concerned — more than half of them also told pollsters they thought the threat of terrorism in Canada would increase in the next six months.
The telephone poll of 1,512 Canadians was carried out by the Immigration Department between Nov. 18 and 24, 2015 and had a margin of error of 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
It was done just before the Liberals rolled out their marquee resettlement program and in the wake of terrorist attacks in France linked to Islamic militants.
One expert says that tacking on three explicit terrorism questions to a survey about immigration puts the government in a position of suggesting a link between the two issues.
But Jack Jedwab says the poll results show that Canadians themselves don't make the link, which stands in contrast with populations in many other parts of the world.
