A Resounding Success

To the individual who criticized that six thousand signatures "is hardly a resounding success", we are clearly vindicated today with the news that a solid majority of Canadians support the government's move to restore the traditional titles, Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force.

In fact millions support the resumption of these magnificent titles, which resonate across the generations and across party lines. Even a strong majority of federalist Quebeckers support the historic designations.

Across Canada, 56 per cent agree with the move. Only 11 per cent are strongly opposed, which means that the potential for critics of this decision to whip up a backlash is small. At the other end of the scale, 18 per cent strongly support the decision. In other words the government found a pretty low-cost way to make almost one in five voters feel pretty good.

It’s not surprising this decision is popular with Conservative voters, who approve by a 72 per cent to 20 per cent margin. More interesting is that this is not an idea that works only with older voters: younger people support this decision in virtually equal numbers.

While there’s predictably more pushback in Quebec, still 41 per cent of voters in that province like this decision. That's easily twice as many as have been thinking about voting Conservative.

Roughly half of Liberal and NDP voters support the move. For leaders of those parties, it puts fighting this decision squarely in the pile of ideas labeled: “Worth the trouble?”