OTTAWA - Soon after the Conservatives took office, government insiders fretted over potential political problems in two areas: Kyoto and Kandahar.
A new public opinion poll suggests they may be successfully neutralizing the former issue but are still struggling with the latter.
The Harris/Decima survey, released exclusively to The Canadian Press, found public reaction to those two issues at opposite ends of the spectrum when respondents were asked for their impressions of the recent throne speech.
People were asked to respond to 23 different aspects of the speech -- and the climate-change component garnered the best response, while the desire to extend the Afghan mission drew the worst reaction.
"The government has succeeded quite well in positioning itself as a government that wants to make some progress on the climate-change issue,'' said Harris/Decima president Bruce Anderson.
"On Afghanistan, it remains the case that people are uncomfortable with that mission.''
Ninety per cent of respondents expressed approval of the Tories' commitment to fight climate change -- 70 per cent said they approved and considered it a priority, while 20 per cent said they approved but felt it wasn't a top priority.
It is worth noting that the poll question did not mention two factors that would likely have driven those numbers down.
The new throne speech explicitly stated that Canada will never meet its Kyoto accord targets, and it also glosses over the fact that little is known about how the government actually intends to reduce greenhouse gases.
Respondents to the survey were simply asked for a reaction to the Tory pledge to implement a national strategy to reduce Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions.
Still, the reaction bodes well for the Tories and suggests there has been no public uproar over their environmental policies.
"I think the government's succeeded in giving people the sense that it wasn't just determined to walk away from Kyoto and not replace it with something else,'' Anderson said.
"The numbers are telling us that people are open-minded and hopeful that the government is going to show a strong set of environmental credentials going forward. To some degree, the negative that was attaching itself to the Conservative brand has been dissipated.''
Afghanistan could be more complicated.
Respondents were massively opposed to the preference stated in the throne speech: remaining in Afghanistan until 2011 in order to complete certain goals, rather than withdrawing in February 2009.
Only 15 per cent approved and called it a priority while another 19 per cent approved and called it a non- priority.
Another 60 per cent either mildly or strongly disapproved.
"While people would in some respects like an earlier exit even than February 2009, public opinion seems resigned to the fact that it'll be at least (until then),'' Anderson said.
"The numbers are telling us that for any government to try to push much beyond that -- there's going to be resistance. It's still probably the single biggest challenging issue that the Conservative party faces.''
The Tories have taken steps to protect themselves on the issue.
They have repeatedly promised that the final say on the mission will not belong to them but to Parliament -- which will be able to vote sometime in the next few months.
The government has also set up a task force, headed by Liberal John Manley, to offer advice on the mission.
Despite all that, the Liberals will certainly not refrain from campaigning on the issue if there's an election over the coming months.
They're already pointing out that, if the Tories had a majority government, any parliamentary vote would be sure to result in a mission extension.
Harris/Decima conducted the online poll of 2,044 respondents, from Oct. 19 to 28. The poll has a margin of error of two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
