President Barack Obama speaks at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami, Monday, Oct. 26, 2009. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Gerald Herbert

OTTAWA - Barack Obama's honeymoon with the public isn't over yet - at least not in Canada.

Two in three people surveyed for the latest Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll said they believe the U.S. president is doing an excellent or good job.

Obama's approval ratings have been slipping in the United States as he fights to usher in health-care reforms and leads his country deeper into war in Afghanistan.

But Canadians, if anything, are more likely to say their opinion of the new president has improved than worsened.

When asked to describe Obama's job performance, 19 per cent of Canadians who responded to the poll described it as excellent and 45 per cent as good.

Those with higher incomes were more likely then their counterparts to believe Obama was doing well.

About one-quarter of people polled said he was doing a fair job, while five per cent called his performance to date poor.

Opinion on Obama was most favourable in Ontario, where almost three-quarters of those surveyed felt he was doing an excellent or good job, and lowest in Manitoba and Saskatchewan where 55 per cent gave him a thumbs-up.

Doug Anderson, senior vice-president of the pollster, said Obama's protracted struggle with vocal opponents to bring in health care that more closely resembles Canada's universal system may be resonating with Canadians.

"They probably like having a U.S. president who's talking about reforming health care in a way that a lot of Canadians appreciate," he said. "Whether or not he wins that battle, that's yet to be determined."

Being honoured recently with the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't hurt either, he added.

At the same time, Canadians - unlike Americans - aren't likely following the finer points of Obama's day-to-day efforts.

"I suspect that there may be a lag effect, that Canadians aren't seeing a lot of direct evidence of him not doing well," Anderson said.

The margin of error for the poll, which took place Oct. 8 to 12, is 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.