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As Prime Minister Marc Carney preparing to travel to China and seeks to restore trade and diplomatic relations, a small majority of Canadians say they are in favor of more trade with Beijing, a new poll suggests.
THE Probe them conducted exclusively for Global News, released on Saturday, found that 54 percent of respondents expressed support for closer trade ties and economic deals with China.
The results mark a turnaround from 2020, when eight in ten Canadians wanted the country to rely less on the Chinese market amid low relations sparked by allegations of foreign interference against Beijing and the arbitrary detention of the “two Michaels.”
Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, says the new poll results “are less about China and more about the United States” and the economic realities of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.
“The reason the economy has rebounded is not that people fell in love with China all of a sudden, that’s why the numbers are low,” Bricker said in an interview.
“The reason they’ve rebounded is because people are wondering who in the world we’re going to trade with. And the second largest population in the world, and the second largest economy, is probably a place that we need to have some sort of relationship with.”
Ipsos contacted 2,001 Canadian adults in early December 2025 for the survey.
Carney will be in China for five days starting Tuesday, marking the first official trip to the country by a Canadian prime minister since 2017.
He will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during the trip, which the prime minister’s office said will build on the two leaders’ first meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea last October.
Relations with Beijing plunged to new lows in 2018 after China imprisoned Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor for nearly three years, a move widely seen as retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on fraud charges in the United States.
Although this source of tension was resolved following the release of the three men in 2021, business relations continued to suffer. Canada has imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and a 25% import tax on steel and aluminum over the past two years, in a move that matches that of the United States.
China responded last March by imposing 100 percent tariffs on various Canadian agricultural products, including canola and peas, as well as a 25 percent levy on pork and seafood.
China’s ambassador to Canada said Chinese tariffs would be removed if Canada dropped its tariffs on electric vehicles. Political leaders from provinces affected by tariffs, such as Saskatchewan, have called on Ottawa to do everything in its power to lift agricultural tariffs.
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Since becoming prime minister, Carney has said it is important to re-engage and “reset” his relationship with China in the face of Trump’s tariffs. Canada’s foreign policy subsequently shifted from seeking to isolate China to pursuing a “strategic relationship” that balances cooperation and competition.
Carney said in September 2025 that Ottawa should be “clearer on the areas in which we engage” with China – that Canada could collaborate “in depth” with Beijing on energy, climate change and basic manufacturing, while maintaining “guardrails” around national security issues.
“We need to be very careful about our relationship with China, not trying to broaden and deepen it, and expose ourselves to even more problems in the future,” said Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior researcher at the University of Ottawa who studies Canada-China relations.
“We must be concerned about the safeguards that will be put in place in the medium and long term and not find ourselves used by China as a wedge with the United States. »
She added that Carney must ensure that Canadian companies are not “put on the mop-up” when they enter the Chinese market and that “we cannot let them get near our cutting-edge technologies, our artificial intelligence or our critical minerals.”
McCuaig-Johnston and Kovrig, now a senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, said Carney must also avoid lowering Canadian tariffs on electric vehicles in exchange for Chinese tariff relief.
“If Canada does this, it will empty its auto manufacturing sector within ten years,” Kovrig said in an interview.
Critics of China and Xi, such as Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, told Global News that Canada should ensure that it deepens its economic ties with Beijing. They say the detentions of Kovrig, Spavor and other Canadians in recent years prove that China and Hong Kong are “not safe places” for business and commerce.
“Are we going to reward China for what it does? [by doing business with them]? I don’t think that’s acceptable,” said Andy Wong, president of the Ontario non-profit Canada-Hong Kong Link.
Economic benefits versus “shared values”?
Saturday’s Ipsos poll suggests Canadians are more interested in trade deals that prioritize direct benefits to the Canadian economy and the cost of living over issues like national security, the environment and human rights.
Seventy-one percent of respondents said the benefits to Canadians are either very important or critically important to trade relationships, and 26 percent consider them a deal breaker.
Two-thirds of survey respondents said economic opportunities for Canadian businesses should be a priority.
That number drops to 60 percent who value human rights, 52 percent who value national security, and 46 percent who value environmental standards and “shared values” between Canada and its trading partners.
Additionally, the poll found that only 25 per cent of Canadians agree that Canada should only enter into “values-based” trade deals with countries that share its values of democracy and human rights, “even if it means slower economic growth.”
“The other 75 [per cent] “Look, I know there are issues here, but the most important thing to me is that this will pay off for Canada in terms of our economic interests, and that it will pay off for people like me personally,” Bricker said.
“I think in times of plenty, when people don’t feel threatened, value arguments become more important in the conversation. But… Donald Trump has moved that conversation to another place where people have become more interested.”
Kovrig nevertheless cautioned that these values should not be ignored in pursuing trade with China.
“Economic interaction with China now comes with a much higher price in terms of the steps you need to take to protect democracy, human rights, security and sovereign independence,” he said.
Just under 20 percent of Canadians surveyed by Ipsos said Canada should trade with countries with different values in order to use trade as leverage to improve human rights.
An almost equal number, 18 percent, said Canada should pursue “pragmatic trade” that ignores the human rights records and domestic politics of its trading partners, as long as the agreements provide mutual economic benefits.
Only 16 percent said they support protectionist policies that would allow Canada to focus on domestic production while reducing its dependence on international trade.
— with files from David Akin of Global and The Canadian Press
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between December 5 and 11, 2025 as part of our syndicated study Trump, Tariffs, and Turmoil. For this survey, a sample of n=2,001 Canadians aged 18 and over were surveyed online, via the Ipsos I-Say panel and non-panel sources, and respondents receive a nominal incentive for their participation. Quotas and weighting were used to balance demographics to ensure that the sample composition reflected that of the adult population according to census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The accuracy of Ipsos polls, which include non-probability sampling, is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ±2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, if all Canadians had been surveyed. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to, coverage error and measurement error. Ipsos complies with the information standards established by the CRIC, which can be consulted here: https://canadianresearchinsightscouncil.ca/standards/
