Almost a year after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s win, Canadians appear to be evenly divided as to whether the nation is on the right track.
That’s according to results of a survey released just a few days after Carney secured a 174-seat majority in the House of Commons by sweeping three byelections that followed five opposition floor-crossings between November and April.
“Overall, Canadians are evenly divided as to whether the one-year-old government has at least met their own bar on key election promises (41 per cent) as say it hasn’t lived up to its goals (41 per cent),” a report on the survey published Monday from the Angus Reid Institute said.
The survey suggested that although most Canadians think the prime minister has met foreign policy expectations, his government has fallen short on issues of affordability.
Sixty-four per cent of respondents found his government to have “met or exceeded” expectations when it came to improving Canada’s international reputation, but more than two-thirds thought he came up short in matters of improving housing affordability and addressing the cost of living.
“Canadians evidently are waiting for much more from the federal government when it comes to affordability,” the Angus Reid Institute report said.
The institute noted the mixed review seen in the results could be because responses were “sharply divided” by political preferences. Three-quarters of respondents who previously voted Conservative said they believe the country is on the wrong track; two-thirds of the Liberal Party voters disagree.
Liberal voters said they were generally satisfied with the prime minister’s performance, but those who vote Conservative were more likely to say Carney’s government has not lived up to expectations.
Overall, the majority (58 per cent) said they approved of Carney’s work thus far.
Challenges causing concern among Canadians
Canadians are mainly concerned with two gaping issues, the survey found: reducing the cost of living for Canadians and managing the tumultuous relationship with our southern neighbour and U.S. President Donald Trump. The latter is a challenge most polled said they think has been met by the prime minister.
More than half of survey respondents said the biggest challenge for the next year will be to reduce the cost of living for Canadians, in light of the war in Iran impacting prices of fuel.
Two other issues have ramped up in the last 12 months for Canadians questioned – namely unemployment and corruption. Although overall unemployment is lower that it was the same time last year, the unemployment rate for people under the age of 24 is nearly twice the national average.
“And there are plenty of reports of young Canadians applying for hundreds of jobs with little response,” the Angus Reid Institute said.
The rising unease surrounding corruption, which responses suggest is a higher priority now than a year ago, is “largely driven” by Conservative voters, according to the institute. This could be driven by the narratives surrounding the post-election flow of floor-crossers, the pollster speculated, listing as an example Leader Pierre Poilievre’s comments about “dirty backroom deals.”
Two-thirds of Conservative voters surveyed told the Angus Reid Institute that floor-crossers should have to step down and re-contest their seat in a byelection.
Meanwhile, issues like health care, economy, crime, immigration, taxes, emergency preparedness, poverty and Indigenous reconciliation showed little to no change in prioritization over the past year, based on current and previous surveys.
How did the Carney government perform in other aspects?
Last month, the federal government announced it had achieved its target of spending two per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) on national defence, part of Canada’s obligation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for the first time in its NATO membership.
Canada’s next target is spending five per cent of its GDP on defence by 2035.
Three-in-five said the Carney government has met or exceeded expectations concerning the defence budget.
A majority also agreed that Carney met or passed their expectations in managing Canada’s relationship with Trump, in advance of the looming Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement renegotiation and despite an escalating trade war. But some (37 per cent) said they “expected more” from Carney in this regard.
Canadians were split on whether the prime minister had made “enough progress” on advancing major projects and improving the economy.
Forty-nine per cent of survey respondents thought the Liberals under Carney had failed to live up to expectations in matters concerning immigration and climate change.
Approval compared to past PMs
The survey found that the current prime minister faced “stiff competition” when it came to which prime ministers Canadians liked most after their first year in office.
Carney fared better than former prime ministers Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, Brian Mulroney, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. But he was outperformed by former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Justin Trudeau, who had the highest approval ratings according to the Angus Reid Institute.
Methodology:
The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online, self-commissioned survey from April 15 to April 20, of a randomized sample of 2,013 Canadian adults who were drawn from the Angus Reid Forum – an online panel that included residents in each of the 343 federal ridings in Canada and representative of the population by age, gender, family income, ethnic status and education. The sample was processed to represent adults according to region, gender, age, household income, and education, based on the Canadian census. A probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.
