Poll after poll has shown that women are at least as supportive of social programs and social measures as men. Women would be expected to be less enthusiastic about tax cuts because the social programs they like would be harmed by loss of tax revenue. For some women, it would appear, protecting the financial abilities of families may be more important than protecting governments' abilities to fund programs. A strong majority of the public embraced strongly virtually the entire menu. As illustrated below, at least seven-eighths of Canadians embrace four of the six measures.
Support falls in the case of constitutional stability and the deregulation of business.
More than four-tenths of Canadians oppose a reduction in the regulation of business. This sizeable segment of business skeptics does not call for higher business taxes but it is nonetheless sufficiently jaundiced about business to insist on continued, strong regulation. Canadians see Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta as leading the country's future growth. Virtually all the votes for Quebec as the economic leader were by Quebecers, particularly respondents with limited formal education. Separatist messaging has persuaded many Quebecers that their province is an economic dynamo that subsidizes the rest of the country and that will achieve its true economic potential only after independence.