Less than one-in-four respondents in the three countries say they followed the final summit statements “very closely” or “moderately closely.”

Few people in three G8 and G20 members were interested in finding out what the participating countries agreed to at the end of last month’s summits, a new three-country Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

The online survey of representative samples of 1,002 Americans, 1,009 Canadians and 2,011 Britons also finds that the heads of government of Canada and the United Kingdom were perceived as having performed better at the meetings than the American President.

Only 23 per cent of Canadians, 20 per cent of Americans and 19 per cent of Britons report following the final communiqués from participating nations “very closely” or “moderately closely.” Canadians (52%) were more likely to be paying attention to the demonstrations in Toronto—the city that hosted the G20 summit—than those in the United States (21%) or Britain (16%).

Overall, 37 per cent of Canadians say they rate the performance of Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the summits as “very good” or “good”, while 26 per cent think he was “bad” or “very bad.” British Prime Minister David Cameron was also praised by more than a third of respondents (37%), but only 13 per cent think he did poorly. Americans were split when assessing President Barack Obama (28% “very good” or “good”, 27% “bad” or “very bad.”).

Less than a third of respondents in the three countries expressed satisfaction with the pledges from the G8 and G20 summits on economic policy, development aid and the environment, with Americans being slightly more critical than Canadians and Britons.

The low level of attention to the summits is exemplified in the high proportion of respondents who said they did not follow the final communiqués closely (CAN 48%, BRI 55%, USA 56%). Also, a third of Canadians (36%), two-in-five Americans (40%) and half of Britons (50%) were undecided about how their respective heads of government performed during the meetings.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

CONTACT:

Mario Canseco, Vice President, Public Affairs
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@angus-reid.com

Methodology: From July 1 to July 9, 2010, Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey among 1,009 Canadian adults who are Angus Reid Forum panellists, 1,002 American adults who are Springboard America panellists, and 2,011 British adults who are Springboard UK panellists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1% for Canada and the United States, and 2.2 per cent for Great Britain. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of Canada, the US and Great Britain. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.