Last Winter, the @CdsnRcds organized a workshop to design a massive survey (69 questions) to examine Canadians' attitude toward foreign policy and national defence. The survey was deployed in August by @NanosResearch. Here is what we learn on foreign policy. 1/n

1) The most common response (31%) was that Canada should be a peacekeeper, a mediator, or a voice of reason in international affairs. Cnd want our contribution to world affairs to focus deescalating tensions in an international environment where reasonableness is in short supply

3) When we asked to choose between promoting values or interests (I know they are not mutually exclusive... but if you had to decide between both, what would you choose). Here values are very much a priority (59%). QC and female respondents seem to favour values more. Interesting

4) We then asked in an open question what should be these values. Inclusivity, fairness, and equality is the most common response. This is super interesting. . In terms of foreign policy, Canadians articulate the need to be authentic – to use Taylor’s notion – on the world stage.

6) I have been annoyed at political parties and pundits who keep on talking about Cdn reputation in the world. Reputation is in the eye of the beholder. So we asked how much Can care about opinion of other countries/regions.

Look at this . Cdn care about Europeans' opinion (possibility because they share the same values/interests). Next... NATO (ok, consistent with Europe). Then UN... hard to swallow UNSC defeat.

9) We asked to see in the future... in 10 years... most important threat... China and climate change.

I think the take away for this first part (we have a second part that we will release in Nov). Is that Cnd’s patience with China and the US is eroding, which is increasing the domestic cost of the government’s efforts to promote better relations with these countries.

2) We asked how important were different foreign policy tools to advancing our place in the world. Diplomacy, Trade, and Environmental policy all rank very high. Immigration, Foreign aid and national defence, less so.

5) We then asked about interests... no surprise here and shoutout to @srdjanvucetic. Trade is the most pressing interest. In many ways, this has been our main fp driver in the last 30 yearsish.

8) The second section of the poll was on international threats. Here again, China is considered the most important threat to Canada. But so is US/Trump (this was an open question). Clear priority on great power politics. Not there... pandemics.