Canadians Want High-Speed Rail Built
Meanwhile, they're still open to joining the EU and the Canadian Armed Forces in a time of crisis
In the last few days, we’ve received polling on a number of issues that piqued my interest, so here’s a brief grab bag of polls and how they break down.
Spark Insights released a poll looking into EU membership, something that I’ve written about previously on this Substack, but in short it’s an idea that a sizeable chunk of Canadians are favourable towards, with this poll being no different.
Spark found 58% of Canadians saying that the idea of Canada joining the European Union is worth exploring further, with nearly 60% of Liberals, Bloc, and NDP voters agreeing, while 50% of Conservatives say the same. Another 25% say that it’s a good idea to join the EU outright, most supported by the non-Conservative parties, while 17% say it’s a bad idea, with 33% of Conservatives agreeing.
That same poll also found 64% of Canadians saying that it was a mistake for the United Kingdom to leave the EU, with even 55% of Conservatives agreeing, while 36% say that it was a good decision to leave.
Recent polling out of the UK finds that British residents would be likely to support joining, with polling from February and March finding net leads for rejoining between +8% and +23%.
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Moving onto ALTO, the high-speed rail project that Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives recently came out against in a strange political decision.
Polling from Abacus, conducted for an anti-ALTO group, found 62% of Canadians support the move to build the high-speed rail line, while only 18% say they oppose building it.
Support is naturally highest in Ontario and Quebec at more than 65%, as those two provinces would be the sole beneficiaries of the railway project, although even 62% of Albertans and 60% of British Columbians support the project.
Support for the ALTO line is highest among Liberals at 72%, with Bloc and NDP voters still comfortably in support at 68% and 65%, respectively. Even a majority of Conservative voters (58%) say they support the project, while just one in four oppose it.
The railway project is likely to crop up in the next federal election, given the project isn’t slated to be completed in its entirety until the early 2040s. So, would the project influence the votes of Canadians in the next election?
Overall, a plurality of Canadians (46%) say the project would have little to no influence on their vote in the next election, while 40% say that it would have a great deal or some noticeable level of influence on their vote.
Those in Quebec were the most likely to say that the project would not influence their vote, with 53% saying as much, while all other provinces are more closely split, with those saying the project will not influence the vote outpacing those who say it would.
That split is similar among the partisan breakout, with New Democrats being the only ones more likely to say the project would influence their vote than not.
Lastly, Nanos finds the share of Canadians who would be willing to enlist in the military, either as an enlistee (full-time) or as a reservist (part-time), in the event that Canada was involved in a major conflict, has grown in the last year.
The share of Canadians who say they agree with the idea that they might be willing to join the armed forces in such a scenario as an enlistee more than doubled from 12% in 2025 to 24% this year, while those who were unlikely to do so dropped from 69% to 50%.
Likewise, the share of Canadians who say they’d be likely to join the Canadian Armed Forces as a reservist in the event of Canada being involved in a major conflict also grew from 19% in 2025 to 32%. The share who were unlikely to agree with that idea dropped from 59% to 42% in the same period.
Overall, regardless of the situation, there was an uptick in the share of Canadians who say they’d view the decision of a loved one or friend joining the armed forces as favourable, rising from 68% last year to 73% this year.