Vote Compass: Lower taxes to help low-income Manitobans, say 52% of respondents

Just over half of Manitobans who have taken part inVote Compass believe cutting taxes is the most effective way to help low-income people, but others said they think there are better alternatives.

Those findings are based on 8,264 respondents who participated in Vote Compass, an online election engagement tool, from March 15 to March 29. Results have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample of the population, according to developer Vox Pop Labs.

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While the vast majority of respondents to date agreed that the government should not do less to alleviate poverty, opinions vary on what should be done.

A total of 52 per cent of respondents across the political spectrum agreed, somewhat or strongly, that the most effective way to help low-income Manitobans is by lowering their taxes. However, 34 per cent disagreed and said they believe there are better alternatives.

Most Vote Compass respondents who identified as Green, Liberal or NDP supporters said they believe the minimum wage should go up, while 51 per cent of Progressive Conservative supporters said they're happy with the current level.

About 83 per cent of Green Party supporters said they somewhat or strongly wanted increased public spending on low-income housing, while 41 per cent of Progressive Conservative supporters indicated that they were content with the status quo.

"I wasn't surprised those who support the Progressive Conservatives are more willing to support the idea of lowered taxes to help alleviate poverty," saidpolitical analystChris Adams.

"Those who support the PCs will tend to be more of the business sector, will more be in ... farmland areas, and those people will have more of a tendency towards independence, more of a sense of 'you should work hard to make your living,' and might not understand some of the challenges that somebody in an urban-poor situation might be [in]."

The NDP government most recently raised the minimum wage to $11 an hour in October 2015 a jump of 30 cents but some labour and anti-poverty advocates have called for higher increases that would bring the rate to a "living wage" level.

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The New Democrats, who hope to be re-elected on April 19, have promised to tackle poverty by reducing taxes for low- and middle-income workers, instituting an annual 50-cent raise to the minimum wage across the board and strengthening programs.

"I think mostManitobanssee minimum wage as something that's really quite close to the poverty level. You can't really live on something like that unless you're a young person living at home and getting by. But to actually be paying rent and raising a kid or two ... it's very difficult," said Adams.

The Green Party has promised to establish a guaranteed annual income plan that would deliver $6,300 a year to Manitobans.

The Manitoba Liberals have promised to study the financial viability of a guaranteed minimum income program, freeze rent increases in 2017 and 2018 and address housing and food security issues in northern communities.

The Progressive Conservatives havepledged to raise the basic personal tax exemption and work with First Nations on urban aboriginal economic development zones that could create economic development opportunities for indigenous communities.

Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in Canada exclusively by CBC News. The findings are based on 3,029 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from March 15 to March 21, 2016.

Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected. Similar to opinion polls, however, the data are a non-random sample from the population and have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample. Vote Compass data have been weighted by geography, gender, age, educational attainment, occupation, and religion to ensure the sample's composition reflects that of the actual population of Manitoba according to census data and other population estimates.