“How do you feel about your life as a whole right now?”
That was one of the questions Statistics Canada (StatCan) asked in its quarterly life satisfaction survey last year, the results of which the agency published on Friday.
The survey found that in the second quarter of 2025, 46.1 per cent of Canadians reported high life satisfaction, up 5.7 percentage points compared to the same period in 2024.
Respondents were instructed to answer the question using a scale of zero to 10, where zero meant “very dissatisfied” and 10 meant “very satisfied.” Responses of eight, nine or 10 were grouped together and considered to be “high satisfaction,” StatCan said.
The agency tracked respondents based on the province they were located in. StatCan found that Quebec reported the highest life satisfaction, while Alberta reported the lowest.
In Quebec, 57.3 per cent of respondents were highly satisfied with their lives, while just 14.8 per cent answered between zero and five on the life satisfaction scale.
In Alberta, meanwhile, the percentage of respondents who said they were dissatisfied with their lives was significantly higher, at 29.1 per cent. StatCan found that just 38.1 per cent of Albertans surveyed reported high life satisfaction.
After Alberta, Ontario was the province with the lowest percentage of high life satisfaction responses at 42 per cent, compared to 25.5 per cent of Ontarians that gave life satisfaction responses of zero to five.
Quebec’s neighbour, New Brunswick, was the province with the second highest percentage of high life satisfaction responses, according to StatCan, at 53.4 per cent.
Survey responses were also grouped by age. The national statistical agency found that 64 per cent of people 75 and older reported high life satisfaction, while the same was true for just 32.7 per cent of people aged 25 to 34.
Between those two age groups, the percentage of respondents who reported high life satisfaction steadily increased in correlation with the ages of those surveyed, StatCan found.
Meanwhile, 46 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 reported high life satisfaction, StatCan said.
The same survey respondents were also asked about their sense of meaning and purpose, as well as their outlook for the future in the second quarter of last year. Both figures had improved since the same period in 2024, StatCan said.
