Poll finds Canadians, Americans moving apart – The Globe and Mail

Canadians and Americans continue to drift apart, souring a relationship that’s likely to get worse as long as Prime Minster Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama remain in power, according to a leading Canadian pollster.

“More of the same,” a relationship adrift, said Nik Nanos, chairman of Nanos Research, adding: “We won’t get a reset until Obama and Harper are no longer leading their respective countries.”

For a decade, Mr. Nanos has been charting changing Canadian and American attitudes with an annual survey on both sides of the border. A dispiriting theme of “drift continues” emerges from polls conducted last month, Mr. Nanos said.

Even as Mr. Harper sends Canadian warplanes to fly alongside U.S. fighter jets in Mr. Obama’s relaunched war on terror, the two countries are drifting apart on many issues.

“Canadians are more interested in [the obstacles] to crossing the border than whether we are a part of an international coalition to fight terror,” Mr. Nanos said, adding that annual polls show that both populations have steadily lost interest in close co-operation even as they generally hold each other in high regard.

via Poll finds Canadians, Americans moving apart – The Globe and Mail.