Canada Day is around the corner, but many Canadians are not necessarily in a mood to celebrate the state of the country, a new poll suggests.
Ipsos polling done exclusively for Global News shows 70 per cent of Canadians agree that “Canada is broken,” a charge Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre repeatedly makes.
“He’s capturing a mood. It’s not something that Pierre Poilievre has created. He’s simply identifying the conditions that he’s seeing out in the Canadian public and calling it out and labeling it,” Ipsos Public Affairs CEO Darrell Bricker said.
Ipsos surveyed 1,001 Canadians between June 12 and 14 and found feelings of pessimism were highest among Canadians between the ages of 18 and 34, with 78 per cent holding the view the country needs fixing.
Bricker says the responses point to larger frustrations.
“Do people feel like their country is broken? No. They feel more like their institutions are broken and they’ve lost a sense of togetherness,” Bricker said.
The pollster, who has measured Canadian public opinion for 35 years, says it’s the worst outlook he’s seen and that “people do not feel like they’re succeeding in life these days, as they should be.”
Bricker says the millennial voting bloc, which appears to be the most disillusioned demographic, is gravitating increasingly towards Poilievre, despite Trudeau’s pledge in this year’s federal budget to bring in policies to help “generational fairness.”
“Older Canadians tend to be a little bit more optimistic about what the country has been because it’s worked for them. But younger Canadians … they’re the ones who are saying, ‘You know, it’s not working for me,'” Bricker said.
“And as a result, they’re looking for change, and the agent of change in this particular situation is for them as the Conservative Party.”
How frustration played out at the polls
Poilievre has led in the polls for more than a year and this week his party captured a stunning victory in the Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection, once considered a safe seat for the Liberals.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held an event in Brampton, Ont., Thursday and criticized his Conservative rival and his mantra.
“Pierre Poilievre is going around and saying Canada is broken. He’s doing that for his own narrow interests because he wants to get elected,” said Trudeau.
But the prime minister has not taken questions since the Liberals’ loss in the Toronto-St.Paul’s byelection.
The surprise defeat has raised questions about his political future. Ipsos polling done exclusively for Global News earlier this month found support for him is close to “rock bottom,” with nearly seven in 10 Canadians saying it’s time for Trudeau to resign.
While his cabinet ministers say he should keep his job, they are acknowledging losing the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding is a major setback.
“Watching the Conservatives win in (Toronto)-St. Paul’s means that everything we’re working on could be thrown in a trash bin. And that doesn’t worry me because I’m a Liberal. That worries me because I’m a Canadian,” Health Minister Mark Holland said while announcing an expansion of the dental care program Thursday.
A day earlier, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he can understand Canadians may be “tired of the government in place” after eight years, but Miller insists Poilievre is “weaponizing” public anger and called him a “fake.”
“He doesn’t present any concrete vision of Canada I support. The guy is full of slogans. Most people don’t really know what they mean. They may be catchy, but he reminds me of a wrestling manager from the 1980s,” the immigration minister said.
Is the political climate dampening July 1?
The Ipsos polling also found Canadians are less enthusiastic now than in the past about Canada Day celebrations and national pride.
The polling asked whether respondents were more or less likely to display a Canadian flag or attend an event marking July 1, compared with five years ago, and whether they were more or less likely to say they feel proud to be Canadian compared with then.
Thirty-two per cent said they were less likely to attend an event and 16 per cent said they were more likely to do so, while 28 per cent said they were less likely to fly a Canadian flag and 16 per cent said they were more likely to do so.
According to Ipsos, 35 per cent of respondents said they are less likely now to say they are proud to be Canadian than they were five years ago. Sixteen per cent said they were more likely now than then.
“There’s this general feeling that there’s really nobody celebrating our country the way that we used to celebrate our country,” Bricker said.
But he also cautioned against buying easy solutions.
“This is going to be a challenge for any political leader. It’s also going to be a challenge for Pierre Poilievre. It’s one thing to call it out. It’s quite another thing to do something to fix it,” Bricker said.