If teachers ever chose to call a strike in the wake of their opposition to the educational reforms of Mike Harris’ Conservative government, the teachers might earn the wrath of the public, particularly since past COMPAS research has shown considerable public support for a number of the government’s specific changes. But the teachers’ non-tumultuous resistance appears to be earning them much goodwill, according to a National Post/COMPAS poll carried out in the GTA and completed September 14.

The specific question asked of a random sample of adults and the distribution of responses are as follows

• Thinking of the conflict between the Ontario provincial government and the teachers, do you feel
• Very favourably towards the government on this (12%)
  
• Somewhat favourably towards the government (16)
  
• Somewhat favourably towards the teachers (28)
  
• Very favourably towards the teachers? (26)
  
• Don’t prompt but record DNK (9) vs. Equal (10).
  

As evidenced by the numbers reported above, sentiment in favour of the teachers outweighs sentiment in favour of the government by a factor of about 2:1—54% vs. 28% with the remainder undecided or ambivalent.

View / Download complete poll in PDF