The latest numbers from EKOS. (EKOS Politics)The latest numbers from EKOS. (EKOS Politics)

Canadians are split almost right down the middle when it comes to their opinion of the amount of money the country is spending on the Winter Olympics, an EKOS poll suggests.

Forty-eight per cent of people who answered the poll said it's too high while 45 per cent said it's just right.

EKOS Poll

The Jan. 13 poll surveyed approximately 3,700 Canadians older than 18 over a one-week period starting Jan. 6, They were asked whether or not tax dollars are being spent wisely on the Games, which begin Feb. 12 in Vancouver.

The poll was done exclusively for CBC TV's current affairs program Power and Politics with Evan Solomon.

Less than four per cent of Canadians think too little is being spent on the Olympics, the poll suggests.

Among respondents in B.C., 69 per cent said too much money is being spent on the Games — a higher proportion than anywhere else in the country.

Support for the Games is highest in Alberta and Quebec, two provinces that have previously hosted the Olympics.

"Probably, it's the combination that British Columbians feel they're being tapped through both the federal government and then their own provincial government," EKOS president Frank Graves told CBC News.

Graves attributed the recession, labour market and the size of deficit as some of the factors driving responses.

Among respondents who were NDP supporters, 58 per cent agreed that the Games were costing too much — a greater percentage than in other national parties.

Fifty-one per cent of female respondents said too much is being spent on the event compared to 46 per cent of men who completed the survey.

Canadians under 25 were the least likely to disapprove of Olympic spending: 42 per cent of respondents in that age category agreed that too much money is being spent.

"We have a society with an overwhelmingly large group of aging baby boomers who are no longer sort of in their athletic prime," Graves said. "Maybe the whole idea of the Olympics isn't got quite the magnetic attraction it did when we were younger."

The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 1.6 per cent, 19 times out of 20.