Canadians like their American neighbours but they aren't crazy about U.S. President George W. Bush and his administration, a new poll has found.

According to an Ipsos-Reid poll for CTV and The Globe and Mail, Bush is coming Tuesday to a country where a steady two-thirds of people or more "disagree fundamentally with the unilateral actions of the Bush administration," John Wright, Ipsos-Reid senior vice-president, told CTV.ca Monday.

"You can be anti-Bush but you're not anti-American," he said.

Wright said the indications in the last few weeks are that Bush is trying to set a more multilateralist tone for his second administration, and that his Canadian visit is a "test round" for this new approach.

It will be interesting to see if Bush succeeds in altering Canadians' views of him, and whether he can bridge some of the distance between himself and Canadians.
Canadians "will look back on this in a couple of weeks and decide if this was something substantive or if it was just a photo op," Wright said.

The numbers

On the issue of Bush's re-election on Nov. 2, there is a clear divide between the two countries.

For Canadians:

• 58 per cent view Bush's re-election as a bad thing.
• 26 per cent see it as a good thing.

For Americans:

• 41 per cent see it as a bad thing
• 56 per cent see it as a good thing

Within Canada, there was an urban-rural divide on the issue. Sixty per cent of urban respondents thought four more years of Bush is a bad thing, compared to 47 per cent of rural respondents.

However, only 15 per cent of Canadians agree with the following: "At the heart of it, I am actually anti-American -- I don't like or respect anything that the United States or its people stand for."

In that grouping, the most anti-American provinces were B.C. (22 per cent) and Quebec (17 per cent).

Eighty-four per cent of Canadian respondents disagreed with that statement.

When asked how they felt about this statement: "I value and respect the United States and its citizens -- it's just that I disagree fundamentally with their government," 70 per cent of Canadian respondents agreed.

Wright made this observation about Canadians and Americans to CTV News: "There's a fundamental difference between our two countries when it comes to how we see criticism about our governments and their policies.

"In Canada, Canadians are oftentimes easy about criticizing government, but it doesn't make them against the nation or its people," he said.

"In the United States, it's almost indivisible. A criticism about the president can mean a criticism of America or Americans, and that's simply not the case in Canada."

Perhaps Americans make an exception for Canadian criticism. When asked to respond to this statement: "Canada is a solid friend and close, dependable ally of the United States," 85 per cent of Canadians agreed and 82 per cent of Americans agreed.

The poll questioned 1,000 Canadians and 1,000 Americans between Nov. 19 and 22. It is considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Policy differences

Same-sex marriages are one area of divergent opinion. Forty-seven per cent of Americans think it is "wrong and should never be lawful," compared to just 27 per cent of Canadians.

On the flip side, 39 per cent of Canadians believe same-sex marriage should be "fully recognized and equal to conventional heterosexual marriage." Twenty-nine per cent of Americans feel the same way.

Seventy-three per cent Americans think Canada should sign on to continental ballistic missile defence. In comparison, only 44 per cent of Canadians believe the same thing.

About half of Americans see Canada as a significant player on the world stage versus 76 per cent of Canadians.

Canadians like their education system. Eighty-four per cent of respondents think their children are getting a good-quality education compared to 59 per cent of U.S. respondents.