Poll: Most Canadians Want Murderers Executed

VANCOUVER - A new poll conducted by Research Co. has found that the majority of Canadians support reinstating the death penalty for murder.

According to the survey, 54 per cent of Canadians support relying on capital punishment on murder conviction, up three points since a similar survey conducted by the group in February of last year.

Research Co.'s data shows that Albertans are more likely in favour of the death penalty with the highest percentage of 62 per cent. Support for capital punishment in Saskatchewan and Manitoba are also high at 60 per cent while 58 per cent of Ontario and British Columbia residents feel the same way. More than half (55 per cent) of Atlantic Canada and 43 per cent of Quebec residents said they would welcome the return of the death penalty.

"Almost three-in-five Canadians aged 55 and over (59 per cent, up four points) would welcome the return of the death penalty," Research Co. President Mario Canseco said in a news release. "The numbers are slightly lower among those aged 35-to-54 (54 per cent, up three points) and those aged 18-to-34 (50 per cent, up three points)."

Conservative Party voters are most likely to welcome the punishment with 71 per cent support (up eight points) while the support is lower (49 per cent, down three points) among those who voted for the NDP in 2021 and the Liberal Party (48 per cent, down one point).

Fewer Canadians (25 per cent) stated the death penalty is never appropriate and fewer than that (9 per cent, down two points) deem it always appropriate. However, the majority of Canadians (58 per cent) believe that the death penalty is sometimes appropriate, which is up four points from last year.

The death penalty in Canada was abolished in 1976, but even before that, federal governments had regularly commuted death sentences to life imprisonment. The last executions in Canada took place in 1962.
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