Public perceptions of hydraulic fracturing (Fracking) in Canada: Economic nationalism, issue familiarity, and cultural bias

Abstract

New applications of hydraulic fracturing (HF) methods to release natural gas from shale deposits have emerged as a hotly contested political issue. Consequently, researchers commonly seek to identify factors shaping public perceptions of this technology. While research conducted in North America has focused primarily on the United States, this paper contributes to a growing body of work examining Canadian perceptions toward HF. We build on the existing regionally-focused literature on public perceptions of HF in Canada with an analysis of data collected from a nationally-representative (n = 2012) survey of attitudes toward hydraulic fracturing administered to the adult Canadian population in 2016. We find that an individual’s cultural biases are strong predictors of their attitudes toward hydraulic fracturing, and that these effects are moderated by levels of issue familiarity. Analysis of an embedded survey experiment further reveals that attitudes in Canada are somewhat affected by cues regarding the developer’s status (i.e. whether a Canadian, American or government-owned corporation), and that a nationalist bias is especially prominent among people with hierarchical predispositions. We further find that familiarity with hydraulic fracturing is associated with significantly less support, and that this relationship is moderated by a respondent’s region of residence. We discuss these findings in light of the existing literature and outline areas for future research.