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 carried out solely 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 wished the nation to rely much less on the Chinese language market amid a nadir in relations sparked by international interference allegations towards 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 USA” and the financial realities of U.S. President Donald Trump’s commerce battle.
“The explanation that it’s bounced again isn’t unexpectedly individuals have fallen in love with China, which is why the numbers are gentle,” Bricker mentioned in an interview.
“The explanation that they’ve bounced again is as a result of persons are enthusiastic about who on the planet we’re going to commerce with. And the second largest inhabitants on the planet, and the second largest financial system, might be a spot that we have to have some form of a relationship with.”
Ipsos contacted 2,001 Canadian adults in early December 2025 for the ballot.
Carney shall 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 through the journey, which the Prime Minister’s Workplace mentioned 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 pressure was resolved after the three have 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 mentioned Chinese language tariffs can be eliminated if Canada dropped its EV tariffs. Political leaders in tariff-hit provinces like Saskatchewan have known as on Ottawa to do all it may to get the agricultural tariffs lifted.
Get every day Nationwide information
Get the day’s high information, political, financial, and present affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox as soon as a day.
Since changing into prime minister, Carney has mentioned it’s necessary to re-engage and “reset” with China within the face of Trump’s tariffs. Canada’s international coverage has subsequently shifted from looking for to isolate China to pursuing a “strategic relationship” that balances co-operation with competitors.
Carney mentioned in September 2025 that Ottawa needs to be “clearer about the place we have interaction” 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 have now 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,” mentioned Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow on the College of Ottawa who research Canada-China relations.
“We have now 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 wherever 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, mentioned Carney should additionally keep away from dropping Canada’s EV tariffs in alternate for Chinese language tariff reduction.
“If Canada does that, then it will hole out its car manufacturing sector inside a decade,” Kovrig mentioned in an interview.
Critics of China and Xi, similar to Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, have advised World Information that Canada needs 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 assume that’s OK,” mentioned 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 taken with commerce offers that prioritize direct advantages to the Canadian financial system and price of dwelling than points like nationwide safety, the setting and human rights.
Seventy-one per cent of these surveyed mentioned advantages to Canadians are both very or critically necessary for buying and selling relationships, with 26 per cent contemplating it a “deal-breaker.”
Two-thirds of ballot respondents mentioned financial alternative for Canadian companies needs 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 progress.”
“The opposite 75 [per cent] is saying, ‘Look, I do know there are points right here, however a very powerful 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 mentioned.
“I feel in occasions of loads, when individuals don’t really feel they’re below menace, the values arguments turn into extra necessary within the dialog. However … Donald Trump has moved this dialog to a unique place that folks have turn into 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 greater price ticket of measures you must take to guard democracy, human rights, safety and sovereign independence,” he mentioned.
Just below 20 per cent of Canadians surveyed by Ipsos mentioned Canada ought to commerce with international locations which have completely different values with the intention to use commerce as leverage for human rights enhancements.
A near-equal quantity, 18 per cent, mentioned Canada ought to pursue “pragmatic commerce” that disregards the human rights information and home politics of buying and selling companions, as long as the agreements supply mutual financial advantages.
Simply 16 per cent mentioned they supported protectionist insurance policies that might see Canada concentrate on home manufacturing whereas lowering reliance on worldwide commerce.
— with recordsdata from World’s David Akin and The Canadian Press
These are a few of the findings of an Ipsos ballot carried out 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, by way of the Ipsos I-Say panel and non-panel sources, and respondents earn a nominal incentive for his or her participation. Quotas and weighting have been employed to steadiness demographics to make sure that the pattern’s composition displays that of the grownup inhabitants in keeping with 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 proportion factors, 19 occasions out of 20, had all Canadians been polled. The credibility interval shall 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/requirements/
